Puddle Of Grace
by Unoriginality
Summary: A damaged arm brings new people into Bucky's life, and allies that followed him back into his own personal hell. Friends don't let friends do that alone. (A BTWWL fic.)
1. Trouble In Shangri-La

A/N: This is a rewrite of Dirty Little Secret. I've hated that fic since I first uploaded it, but I got arrogant and addicted to good feedback, so up it went without so much as an edit, leaving behind poor writing and lots of plot holes that I got stuck with later. This hopefully fills those in, with much better writing. Sorry to anyone who liked the original, but I couldn't stand it being uploaded anymore.

* * *

It was _supposed_ to be a simple trip to an abandoned (they hoped) Hydra base in Kiev.

But, you know, it might've been smart if they'd taken a closer look at where the Russian separationists had set up camp in the city before going. Getting greeted by a whole lotta Russians and possibly some Ukrainians who wanted in on the deal, all of whom were well-armed, was not in the plan.

Well, too little, too late.

Taking them down wasn't problematic, not with urban warfare. Plenty of places for Bucky to hide to take his shot, and plenty of walls for Steve's shield to make the rounds against, knocking out the maximum number of people as possible. There were a lot of nasty ways to die happening as the shield ripped through fleshy bits that really weren't designed by nature to withstand a thick metal projectile thrown with enough force to lodge itself in metal.

Bucky didn't remember quite this much acceptance of that damage back during the war, but all that meant was that Steve had gotten more adept at using that damn thing since then. Good. Meant less work for Bucky.

Bucky was focusing on his sniper skills- he had no proper snipe, but he was the Winter Soldier, he was the sniper for the Howling Commandos. He could turn anything into a snipe if he wanted. He let Steve throw the shield around to keep the ground forces busy while he took up position on a roof to take out the enemy's forces that decided that they didn't have to be on the ground level to take their lumps from Captain America.

Bucky idly wondered they'd forgotten that Captain America didn't work alone.

As Steve moved through the streets, Bucky followed him from rooftop, taking out pests as he went. Each time, he'd come in from behind, ducked low in the fading twilight, hard to see except where the light hit his arm. With the latest target so focused aiming his nicely-made M4A1 down at Steve, he didn't see even that glint until Bucky had already pulled one of his knives and slit his throat. With a fluid motion of a well-trained soldier, he turned and flung the knife into the throat of separationist on the next building over.

Two more down, and one more nice weapon to 'borrow' to take out more until Steve got out of range and Bucky was forced to move on, usually abandoning the stolen weapons as he went. His weapons on his person were great, but an M4A1 had some advantages over them, and he wasn't responsible for finding ammo to replace what he used for his temporary spoils of war.

He grabbed the M4A1- oohh, a custom altered with a different lower and upper receiver. How nice. And it worked perfectly for knocking off a few more people who were just starting to notice that there was less gunfire than there should be from his direction. He might keep this one.

Three more down. Steve's shield knocked another five on the ground down, but he was starting to get swarmed. Bucky knew Steve could handle it, but he still worried.

Bucky jumped buildings, taking his combat knife back from the neck of the other wannabe pain in the ass. He liked that knife. A quick glance around, taking in every detail he could, Bucky realized that they were badly outnumbered. They could maybe get through this to get to the Hydra base, but they may be forced to retreat and try another way through. That was, of course, assuming that the separatists would let them go.

Ah well. They could run faster than these assholes.

Seconds lasted lifetimes. For every squeeze of the trigger from Bucky, from every throw of the shield from Steve, a dozen could go down.

Still left too many. Where the hell did these guys all come from?!

Oh. Right. Russia. Big country. Lots of people.

The temptation to get down in the middle of the fray and _hunt_ was strong. That was the way Hydra had trained him. Not to sit in a perch and take in details in one area before moving on to another, but to see everything at once, discarding details that were irrelevant to the mission objective, which was always to kill.

But Bucky stayed up on his position on the rooftops as Steve's watcher, making himself fall back on the sniper's mindset. He put his focus on Steve, became aware of everything around Steve. He was his own Winter Soldier, not Hydra's. He didn't fight like that Soldier. He made that a mantra in the back of his head on every mission. He didn't trust himself otherwise to not slip.

His hyper-awareness of Steve's location and that distracting voice in his head was why he almost missed the guy with the RPG-7 a few buildings over. It would've been nice if the asshole had fired at Bucky, but oh no, he just _had_ to fire at Steve, didn't he?

Bucky would thank him later for that. And by 'thanking', he meant a neck wringing.

Heartbeats counted off the seconds.

One- the separatist raised his weapon.

Two- Bucky was too far and at too bad of an angle to get a good shot on him before he fired. He yelled a warning out to Steve.

Three- that thing was aimed right at Steve and Steve wasn't moving fast enough, kept too busy to react.

Four- after taking a wild shot in the separatist's direction, then abandoning the M4A1, Bucky pushed off the edge of the roof he was on with every bit of strength he had, sending him flying down to the ground, right between Steve and the oncoming warhead. Bucky really hoped that it was a fragmental anti-personnel and not something that would blow his arm apart like a thermobaric.

Five- the last second Bucky had before the grenade smacked him soundly in his left arm, sending him down crashing into Steve's back. The fragments tore apart in all directions, his upper arm absorbing the main impact.

Before he was even able to register hitting the ground he knew something was wrong with his arm. It sent painful feedback from the wires inside somewhere that made everything in that area hurt. It barely responded to his efforts to get up, leaving him to have to rely on his good arm to stand.

The pain brought a wave of dizziness. There was no way he was going to survive a fight with one arm dead and pain haze making his brain do funny things.

"You okay?" Steve demanded, half-distracted by blocking incoming bullets with his shield. He backed them towards the shelter of a dead-end alley, giving combatants only one direction to fire to.

"My arm," Bucky said, voice cracking from pain. He'd been hurt before, kept going through it, but the intense pain right into the nerves of his entire left rib cage and shoulder girdle, in the part of his arm that remained inside the computers and metal, it was blinding him on that side. "We gotta get outta here."

Thank everything that Steve didn't question what happened, just grabbed Bucky's Skorpion off his back holster and laid down some cover fire. They ran towards the dead end wall. Bucky grit his teeth against the pain, jumping up against one wall, pushed off to the adjacent wall, back to the first, then over the top of the wall blocking the end of the alley. Steve followed just on his heels, up and over.

The metal arm began to hang limp as they ran, which was a thousand times more frightening to him than the possibility of pursuers. Even with the damage done over the years, even holding up against Steve's shield, he'd never lost full control for this long over his arm. He wouldn't be able to defend Steve or himself properly if he were half-crippled.

The sounds of gunfire and human voices faded behind them as a mile disappeared underfoot. The pain in his upper arm grew worse. Another mile.

Their convenient hiding place where they'd landed the quinjet that they'd been granted use of when on missions against Hydra came into view. Bucky could've kissed the damn thing just for seeing it.

Once up in the jet, Steve didn't waste any time getting them up in the air. They didn't have enough fuel left to get back to DC; they'd planned on stopping at a US-friendly military base in Sweden that they'd already been in contact with on the matter. That meant Bucky was going to have to make it at least as long until he could get his arm looked at properly. Steve was good with technology on the user end, not the engineering end. And it'd been too many years since Bucky had picked up a tool for him to be much good, and he'd never worked on computers.

He was also fairly sure that he'd be too distracted by the pain to be able to focus on not cutting a wire or something.

"Lemme see," Steve said.

Bucky opened his eyes, finally, reluctantly, looking at the damage. He had to grab his wrist and pull it up to put the damaged upper arm where it could be seen.

There was a large piece of shrapnel from the warhead jammed neatly between two plates of metal that had shifted to absorb the impact. Yeah, unhelpful timing for his arm's responses to do that. Steve tugged at it just slightly. "Bucky, you know my shield could've taken that better than your arm."

Bucky glared at him for the scolding, and also because he was in pain, and being in pain didn't exactly keep the cranky pants off. "Excuse me for being concerned about you. Your back was turned, I warned you, and you didn't turn in time. You're welcome for saving your ungrateful ass."

Steve took the reaming out with grace, keeping his focus on the shrapnel. "That is an impressive piece of a warheard. It looks lodged pretty deep. That's not where your stump still is, is it?"

Bucky took in a deep breath before taking a closer look. If it were high enough to be in his stump, any injury to the flesh would bleed into the connecting computers. He had no idea how they'd handle that. Gingerly, he tapped the embedded shrapnel, the wires that acted as artificial nerves screaming in protest, the thin copper inside the burned up insulation probably getting severed.

He shook his head. "No. I don't feel anything there. It's below where the arm ends. It's cut open some of the wires." He thunked his head back against the copilot's seat. "Which means it needs more work than either of us are capable of. I don't know how to repair it, so I can't, and I can't tell you how to, either."

Steve sat back in his seat, looking over at Bucky's arm. "I know who to take you to," he said after a few seconds of silence save the quinjet's engines. Bucky turned his head to look at Steve, not once lifting it from the headrest of the seat, and waited for Steve's answer. "Tony Stark. If anyone can fix that, it's him."

Stark.

Howard's son.

If the painful feedback in his arm wasn't enough to make him feel nauseous, Steve's suggestion certainly was. He turned his head the other way, trying to block out the smell of that burning car, the sound of Howard's screams, the perfect amount of pressure to snap a man's neck-

Bucky felt himself beginning to shake, his breath hitching and his head spinning as he tried to keep the attack under control. He couldn't handle that, he wasn't ready to go back there. He wanted to throw up. He wanted a warm little corner to curl up in and cover his head with his hands until his mind stopped moving in crazy circles and things stopped feeling like he was being crushed under something.

"No. Not Stark."

"Bucky-"

"Not. Stark."

Steve's voice turned gentle, the same soothing tone he used when trying to calm Bucky down from an episode. "Bucky, I know that you're not ready to go back there. And I'm not going to make you go back there. We'll worry about that later. Right now, what matters is that you're in pain with a broken arm. Even if we don't come back to Kiev to raid that base, you can't be without a functioning arm, not with the lives we lead."

The idea of having to go half-crippled scared Bucky, almost as much as having to revisit Howard's death to explain it to Tony and hope for forgiveness, or at least enough of a kindness for Steve's sake to get his arm repaired. But he couldn't go back there. He couldn't. He wasn't ready. Steve was very right about that.

"What're you going to tell him?" Words were difficult during these episodes- compounded by the pain -but he managed a few, searching for something in this idea that would settle him down. The pain in his left arm made his left eye feel slightly blind, it was almost enough to make him miss the chair. Almost. And then bringing up the Starks. Not what he needed right then.

"For right now? Nothing."

That took a few seconds to sink in past the pain and the fear and mostly the pain. Once he was sure he'd registered what Steve had said right, he turned his head again to stare at him. "You're going to lie to your friend about his father's death just to use him? Steve, that's not you."

Steve took in a large breath, like he was buying time to come up with a reply. "I'm more worried about you. I'll handle Tony. We don't have time right now for his temper to wear out to something reasonable so we can explain how it wasn't your fault. The pain you're in alone makes me willing to figure out how to get his help immediately. I don't know who else we can turn to."

Bucky could only stare at him for a long few seconds. "You've gotten cutthroat."

Steve looked out the cockpit. "You'd do the same for me. I owe you nothing less." He shrugged. "Besides, he'd do the same for Pepper if positions were reversed, and I'd hope we'd understand. I'll handle Tony. _After_ your arm is fixed."

Bucky sighed, closing his eyes again, trying to will away the pain and keep it from feeding the tiny starts of an episode that the name Stark had brought up. "Fine. But only because I'd do it for you. I don't like that you've become like me, though."

There wasn't an immediate response forthcoming, and Bucky nearly dismissed the idea of getting one at all; when Steve got caught doing something he shouldn't do, he tended to get a bit quiet.

"You never had to see the stranger in your best friend's eyes," Steve said, voice low. "Not the way I did. I don't care what I have to do to make sure you never look at me that way again. I can't do that. You're not the only one that got messed up in this."

If Bucky could move his metal arm- the one closest to Steve -he would've put his hand on Steve's shoulder, the only response he could think of while being stuck in their seats. A hug would've been better. But there were no words to go with either gestures. Hydra had taken them away, and even if they hadn't, he simply had no idea what he could say to that. Not beyond "I'm sorry." He hoped that was enough.

He felt Steve's hand on his shoulder and neck, just past where the metal sank into flesh. That area hurt, was tender, but Bucky resisted the urge to wince, mentally clinging to the comfort it provided.

"It's not your fault. Hydra's the only one to blame in this. It's not the first time Hydra's made me run counter to my normal nature."

Bucky had to turn his whole head to see Steve- his left eye was still a bit blind from the pain and he seriously hoped that didn't turn out to be permanent -and looked at him, silent as he took that in. He wasn't sure he knew what Steve was talking about, and right that minute, he didn't want to know. He couldn't remember what it was, so either it was locked in a hole somewhere still, or it was something that happened after the train. In that case, he could take guesses, but he decided that he wasn't going to let his brain go down that further.

Steve's willingness to use a friend to help Bucky scared him enough as it was. He'd never wanted Steve to get to that point. Steve never should've had to rewrite his moral code just for Bucky. That was Bucky's job as the older brother.

But, Steve was a full-grown man, capable of making his own choices, and even though Bucky had rarely seen it in his friend, Steve was right: the mess Hydra made of Bucky affected them both.

With a deep sigh, Bucky turned his head again to watch forward out the cockpit. "We'll make them pay," he said, assuring himself as much as Steve.

The stop in Sweden was brief, just long enough to fuel up and for emergency medical personnel to get a look at Steve and Bucky for any wounds beyond Bucky's arm, which they flat out refused to touch. There were some surface wounds, a few burns, a couple scratches that had already stopped bleeding, and some bruises that were going to be tender for awhile. Nothing that wasn't expected.

They offered Bucky something for pain, and he declined. There really wasn't anything that was going stay in his system long enough to do any good anyway.

While the jet was getting refueled, Steve flagged down one of the first aid workers that had sat him and Bucky down for an exam. "I need to contact Tony Stark, he should be at the Avengers Tower in Manhattan," Steve said in Swedish, although his accent sounded different from the personnel they'd encountered. "Got a line I can use for that?"

The medic nodded. "Of course, Captain. Does it need to be on a secure line?"

"Shouldn't," Steve replied. "Just ask Tony if he's available to do some tech work for us."

The medic glanced at Bucky, and if Bucky had more energy, he'd snarl at him, just to scare him. It was obvious that 'tech work' was 'fix someone's mechanical arm'. The medic, however, was refraining from saying as much. Score one for him.

The med tech stepped outside of the room to put his call into the base's communications department, if Bucky had to guess, leaving Steve and Bucky mostly alone. Steve moved over to lean against the wall next to Bucky's chair. Upon seeing that Bucky's injury was mechanical and nothing they could help with, the medical staff had simply shown him to a comfortable chair to rest in while he and Steve waited on the refuling.

"I have a feeling this is probably a stupid question," Steve said in a low voice, switching to English.

Before he could get it out, Bucky interrupted him. "Then don't ask it. And to answer it, it feels like total protonic reversal." At Steve's blank look, Bucky growled, gingerly moving his metal arm by the wrist to sit on his lap. "Ghostbusters, Steve. That movie Sam made you watch."

"There's been a lot of movies Sam's told me to watch at this point. I remember that one, but I don't have any idea what protonic reversal means."

Bucky grit his teeth. Steve's normally perfect memory, failing him. It was unfair to expect him to remember every line from every movie he'd watched, but of all the times for him to forget. It meant Bucky had to try to remember how that phrase was explained. Not easily done while in enough pain to make him blind in one eye and make breathing an effort. "'Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.' Sound familiar?"

"Now it does." Steve raised an eyebrow and gave him a rather pointed look. "Although for being in so much pain, you're sure mouthy."

"I'm a cranky patient," Bucky said. "And I'm trying to think past the pain. Humor me."

Steve didn't reply at first, which Bucky took as a blessing because the pain was starting to get bad enough now for even sarcastic words to start finding that great abyss where most of his other words had gone to.

"You gonna be okay to get to New York?"

Bucky rested his head back on the wall behind him, trying not to make the pain too obvious, but he was stretching his ability. "No. I'll probably pass out, or throw myself off a cliff and hope it works this time."

"That's not funny." Steve sounded genuinely angry about that. Bucky didn't blame him.

"No, it's not, and neither is how much this fucking hurts."

"Tony'll fix it." His tone suggested that Steve might hold his shield over Tony's head until he agreed, and if Bucky had been in any better of a state of mind, he would've commented on it. Goddamnit, Steve, you're not the one that's supposed to have fucked up morals.

"Captain?" The med tech's voice interrupted any other thoughts or words Bucky might've dredged up past the pain. "We got ahold of an AI called JARVIS. He says Mister Stark isn't at the Tower right now and wanted to know if it's an emergency."

Bucky wanted to jump out of his chair and strangle the man. There was a large piece of shrapnel jammed in his arm and he couldn't think to tell JARIVS that _yes,_ it was a fucking emergency?

The man was very lucky that Bucky didn't want to move unless he had to and one hand was disabled so strangling would be difficult.

Steve managed to sound like he was staying calm against his will when he answered in Swedish with that odd accent. "Yes, it is. Tell him Steve needs him to look at some advanced tech. Willing to pay."

Well, okay, if Steve actually paid Tony for this repair work, Bucky would feel a bit better about going to him. He hoped that Tony would demand payment.

The man disappeared again, and this time Bucky couldn't bring himself to say anything or even really think anything anymore. It hurt. His face hurt, he could feel muscles spasming all the way down the side of his face, his neck, the bit of flesh arm left, his rib cage. Everything was on fire.

This time, the medic returned almost right away. "The AI says that he will contact you on a secure line once you're in the air, and is sending you coordinates for your on-board navigation system."

Steve nodded once. "Thank you."

All that was left at that point was waiting for their quinjet to finish getting refueled. Bucky had no idea how much time passed before they were notified that it was finished, but he was fairly sure he spent part of that time not quite conscious.

They were escorted to their refueled jet by a few security personnel, then guided to take off. Bucky spent the whole time in his seat, trying to tune out the way his nerves were doing the riverdance all over the attached muscles, the relentless pounding stretching down his whole left side. He counted his heartbeats, slowed them down as if about to take a shot with a good snipe.

Steve initiated a communication with JARVIS once they were safely on their way towards the northern part of Greenland. "JARVIS, it's Steve. What's going on with Tony being out of town?"

Bucky leaned forward just enough to eye the coordinates that had been programmed into their navigation system. Somewhere in the southern coast area of California. That was as far as he cared to lean forward anymore though, so he sat back and closed his eyes again.

"Mister Stark and Miss Potts maintain permanent residency at the Avengers Tower in New York City," JARVIS replied. "However, Mister Stark missed having a quieter location to work on projects. He said he had more room and fewer people underfoot in a vacation house than he does at the Tower."

There was a pause while Steve took that in. Or something. Bucky's eyes were closed, he couldn't tell for certain. "Isn't putting it right back so close to the house the terrorists destroyed kinda risky?"

"The location is known only Mister Stark, Miss Potts, and Doctor Banner so far," JARVIS replied. "If you discount the government agencies that need to know for property tax purposes and local utilities companies. Those are registered under pseudonyms."

"Naturally. So he's willing to help out?"

"He is willing to assist with a technical problem, yes. However, he requests more information as to the nature of the problem."

There was an extended silence that prompted Bucky to look at Steve. Steve was staring at him. Bucky frowned. "What?"

"How much do you want Tony to know about your past? We won't go where you're not ready, but he might want to know about your identity."

If he were in a better state of mind, he would've sworn and put more thought into it. "Tell him what he needs to know. Just don't make me go back there."

He shied away when Steve reached over to pat his shoulder- everything in that area was hurting, no matter how comforting Steve intended that gesture to be, it was going to be painful.

Steve withdrew his hand and turned back to the comm. "Basic briefing? Bucky didn't die in the mission to capture Zola. He survived the fall. He's been experimented on, he's got roughly the same enhancements as me, but his left arm is computerized. He's got some shrapnel jammed pretty good in his arm just above his elbow and it's causing nerve pain. I have no idea what might be wrong in there, but Bucky's in a lot of pain. The quicker this can get repaired, the better he'll feel."

The conversation began to fade in Bucky's awareness as his brain started shutting down in protest to the pain levels.

He spent the rest of the trip passed out.


	2. Will You Be There, Holding My Hand?

"Bucky? We're here."

Bucky barely parsed hearing anything, more like a distant noise instead of something right in his ear. His name was repeated and he managed to flop his head over to look in the general direction of the voice. "Hm?"

Someone's arms wrapped around his shoulders, making the nerves in his left arm cry in protest and he tried to pull away, tried to yell obscenities at whoever was making him hurt.

"Easy, Bucky, it's me." Steve's voice.

"That's really got him in pain," another voice said, followed by a noncommittal third voice, both male.

"I gotcha," Steve said, managing to get Bucky out from his seat despite Bucky's weak attempts at stopping agony caused by the nerve damage in his arm was like ripping the left half of his body to pieces.

Once he was out of his seat, Steve moved around to his right side to support him. The nerves on his left side screamed.

"That left side's almost deadweight," the noncommittal voice said.

Bucky peered at him, trying to make out features with his pain blurred vision. "Howard?"

The man took in a deep breath. "Close. Tony. I'm your mechanic. And we've got Bruce on the video to try to help us manage your pain. Which, it looks like, is high." He tapped the edge of an eye piece he was wearing, the tiny image of another man too small for Bucky to make out any details of on the outside of the eyepiece.

"Must be nerve pain," Bruce said. "And he's been suffering it for hours. It's no wonder he's acting this out of it. Super soldier or not, pain is going to cause shock after awhile. Get him in the car, get him back to your place."

Bucky assumed the 'you' in that sentence was Tony. "Close?" Please let it be close.

"Not far," Tony said. "About two miles. In my car, we'll make good time."

Bucky nodded. The end was in sight, he could make it awhile longer. The mental rest he'd gotten hadn't improved the pain, but it gave him a bit more strength to keep going, to let Steve help support him out of the jet, and to a car.

"Leave the jet, one of my people will take care of it," Tony said.

"I was hoping you'd have someone around to do that," Steve said, helping Bucky into the backseat of the car. "Does your arm respond at all, Bucky?"

Bucky tested his arm, just able to get his wrist and fingers to flex. "A little."

"Think you can buckle yourself?"

Bucky tried to throw a glare at Steve for that statement, making him sound like a little kid, but he didn't quite have it in him to do that, and he could accept that he was in enough pain that he might need help. "I can do it." Most of the work was with his right arm anyway, he only needed a loose grip on the buckle to secure the hook.

Steve shut the door for him.

"How long since the injury, Steve?" Bruce asked from the direction of the front seat, his image having switched to a proper display on the dash. Bucky wondered when they'd started on the road. He hadn't been aware of the car turning on.

"About eight hours ago. He's spent most of it passed out," Steve replied. Bucky saw him looking his direction.

"Then he's been in physiological shock for awhile, if I had to guess," Bruce said. "He was a sniper, right?"

"Best one in the Army," Steve said, and if he weren't in too much pain to give a damn, Bucky might've glowed with his own ego at that statement.

"Get him to use his training to try to settle his heart rate. I don't want his body overwhelmed by the shock. I don't know how long he can go without proper medical attention for it. His biology's unfamiliar to me."

"Bucky-"

"I heard," Bucky interrupted Steve before he could repeat what Bruce said. "I'm trying." He given up on that before Bruce suggested it, but Steve didn't need to know that.

The lightning running down his nerves and spasming through his mucles like echoing thunder was intensely distracting. It wasn't like tuning out outside stimulus like unsafe heat levels, or being half-buried in snow. The distraction was coming from inside, and that was harder. But he knew that shock could interrupt natural processes, so he focused every bit of mental strength he had on his heartbeat, keeping it pumping at a healthy rate, keeping enough blood moving for his body to not shut down.

It wasn't really working anymore. He'd already been pushed past his limits.

He felt the car stop. Felt it turn off. Felt his seatbelt unhook and the strap slide across his chest to its resting position. He pushed open his door with his right shoulder, but he was going to need help to do more than that.

Help was given right away, Steve taking Bucky's right arm over his shoulders, and slowly walking them towards the front door of a house that looked smaller than what Bucky would've expected for a vacation home for a Stark.

Which still didn't make it small.

A woman greeted them at the door, holding it open for them. She had blonde hair, but other than that, Bucky was so focused on getting into the house with minimal help that he didn't really register, nor care, what she looked like.

"Pepper, can you get a bowl or something of lukewarm water and a washcloth?" Bruce asked from the eye piece; the call had transferred back once the car had stopped. Tony was leading them to some stairs. Oh god, stairs. He had to go down those, didn't he? Damnit.

"Of course," Pepper said, closing and locking the door behind them and disappearing elsewhere in the house. Bucky assumed the kitchen.

When Bucky stopped at the top of the stairs, staring down them, Steve hesitated. "Think you can make it down?" he asked.

Bucky nodded. "Just don't ask me to run." He wasn't admitting to anyone yet that he was half-blind in one eye still, the negative nerve feedback in the computers in his arm sending pain all up his shoulder and face on that side. He could feel the muscles in his left cheek spasming from the misfiring nerves.

The stairs were curved, as if curling around an internal support of the building to a secret down below, but was probably just a fancy way of getting to Tony's workshop that JARVIS said he liked to stretch his legs in. Either way it went, the wide curve made it easier to see the stairs in front of him, made it easier to get his left side to respond properly to get down them.

"Bring him over here," Tony said after he'd typed in a password on the touchfilm on the glass by the door and the door had opened.

Bucky squinted his left eye shut, or tried past its twitching, trying to take in the details of the part of the room he was being led into.

The room almost looked like a round garage/display room for cars, only there were no cars, just counters and pieces of technology half finished and computers. The far end was dark.

The nerves in his brain joined the ones in his arm, screaming a silent noise in his brain when he caught sight of a chair that _looked like that chair_ that he was being led to. He yelled, trying to pull back out of Steve's grip, away from that chair, anything to _not go back there_.

Steve's grip held firm, and without use of his left arm to fight back, Bucky was going to lose. He only had one side with any purchase to pull away with. "Easy, Bucky, easy!" Steve said, too frantic to be terribly calming, but it was sharp and Bucky could hear it through the panic, even if it wasn't quite doing any good just yet. "It's not that chair, I promise, you will never go back to that chair. I'm here, that can't happen again."

Bucky still struggled to back away from that chair, but with the spasming muscles and painful nerve response on his left side, he ended up slipping, his left leg kicking out from under him, dragging him and Steve down to the ground. Steve never let go of Bucky's right side, holding him firm. "Easy, Bucky. Shh, it's okay. It's not going to hurt you. Look at it." Once Steve's words had finally started to sink in enough to make Bucky's brain try to work, he looked at the chair. "See? No device on the head, just a head rest. It's just a good design to get at your arm, that's all."

Bucky stared at the chair with clearer eyes as the panic abated. It looked similar to _that_ chair, but Steve was right, there was not the mindwipe device attached, just a regular chair with arm rests, like what might be at a dentist's office, or in a salon.

He didn't like the salon chairs either, wouldn't sit in them, Steve had to cut his hair for him, but this was to make pain stop. This wasn't something mundane that he could get around to accommodate his neuroses.

There were a couple computers, but his arm was computerized, if Tony had hope of repairing it, he'd need them. And they didn't look like the same design as what Hydra used.

It was different. Just different enough, and promised an end to the agonizing nerve pain which was starting to take the forefront of his brain now that his fear had subsided a bit, and he just wanted the pain to stop. He could handle it, at least as long as it took to stop the pain and fix his arm.

Steve helped him back to his feet, which just caused another lightning strike up Bucky's shoulder. "Come on, it's okay. I wouldn't have recommended Tony if I thought you'd be in danger."

"I'm _fine,"_ Bucky growled through clenched teeth.

Tony had wisely stayed back out of the way, and stepped to the side to let Steve get Bucky to the chair. Bucky shook off Steve's assistance in sitting down. There were no straps; Bucky almost wanted to cry with relief.

"So, I see something got left out when you told JARVIS what was going on," Tony said, finally moving towards Bucky, standing on the side of the chair where Bucky's arm would be once he was fully settled.

"What'd he leave out?" Pepper asked from across the room, that bowl of water and the washcloth in her hands.

Tony walked away and grabbed a rolling office stool and sat on it, wheeling himself back to Bucky. "Take off the shirt and tactical vest. I need to see the port. And for the love of god, disarm, please. I see four sharp and pointies and four very well-made guns that can put holes in things." Tony glanced back at Pepper. "Apparently, the chair frightened him right off his feet."

Bruce's image transferred again, this time to a full standing image that moved around to Bucky's other side. Pepper followed him and set the bowl down on a tray that held a large glass of water and a bottle of pills that could've been any damn thing. "Should we need to know what this panic attack was about?" he asked.

Their words were different from Hydra's, they were speaking about him as a person. He wasn't happy having his dirty laundry aired, but as long as the bit about Howard wasn't thrown out just yet - Steve had better eventually, but for now, Bucky's arm and almost his entire left side hurt enough that he was willing to let it slide -he could live with it.

He decided to let Steve explain; he'd heard the basics of what Steve had passed to JARVIS, but that was it before he'd passed out.

He focused on squirming out of his gear and shirt one armed. Steve had to help get Bucky out of it. Most of those straps and holsters required two hands and Bucky's left arm was not only useless, but the shrapnel was hard to not jostle when taking the clothing off. Steve was also the one to remember to disarm him. Bucky made a noise of protest when Steve started pulling his guns from his holsters.

"You don't need them, they'll be right here."

Bucky stared at him with as much annoyance as humanly possible in his situation.

"Stop pouting at me, you'll get them back later."

Obviously the annoyance had not been as successful as he'd hoped.

Fine.

Bucky finished disarming himself, handing over his SIG-Sauer after some awkward struggling to get it out of his let hip holster.

"Hydra did more than experiment on him," Steve said once the gear was removed, holding just the discarded turtleneck and tactical vest, the weapons being deposited on a nearby workbench. "They brainwashed him, and there was a chair with a device at the head that they'd strap him into. Zap his brain."

That was one way to put it. It didn't exactly describe the pain, but it worked well enough.

Tony made an angry noise as the computers on that side beeped, and Bucky looked over to see Tony pulling over his own tray with tools that Bucky recognized, but dust if he knew what they were called. The last time he'd done any engineering, computers weren't around yet, and these tools were mostly built for working with computers. "Human experimentation. Good thing I never liked Hydra to begin with." He pointed one of his tools at Steve. "I'm not happy that my old man was involved in experimenting on you, either, but at least it means you're here for me to whine about it."

"I know," Steve said. "Believe me, I'm not happy about this, either. The only good that came out of it is that I got my best friend back."

But your best friend is a psychotic mess, is the part you aren't saying.

The noise in his head faded back to a constant mantra of 'please make it stop hurting'. He pushed himself up into the chair properly, and grabbed his left wrist to place his arm on the armrest for Tony to get to it.

"JARVIS said that he has similar physiology to you," Bruce said from Bucky's other side, looking up at Steve. "I take it that means medication is going to be as touchy?"

Steve nodded. "'Fraid so."

"What'd they do for you in the hospital for pain?"

Steve shrugged helplessly. "They tried a few things- morphine, never ending Percocet drip. Nothing they did really helped. The Percocet took the edge off just enough to let me sleep sometimes, but only because the drip never let up. Mostly, nothing really helped."

Bruce studied Bucky, and Bucky could do nothing more than return the look with a chemical-hazed expression, endorphins running through his veins but not doing their job very well. He awaited the good doctor's orders. "Well, we'll try keeping him on Percocet like they had with you. I decided on pills, they were easier for me to transport here than bags of liquid injections, and I didn't want to make Pepper play phlebotomist when she has no training. He shouldn't be so out of it that he can't handle pills."

Pills. Good. No needles. God, no needles. The chair was bad enough, although at least it was a thousand times more comfortable than the one Hydra used. "It's nerve pain," he said, voice strained to go much higher than something just past a whisper. "Medicine doesn't touch nerve pain anyway."

Bruce smiled in the way a doctor reassuring a patient might. "That's not completely true. Some opiates work. Anti-convulsants, too. But since we'll hopefully have this done quickly, I'm sticking with the tried and true Percocet. You wanna take your first pill before Tony gets started over there?"

Bucky stared at the bottle on the tray next to Bruce and Pepper, who was staying quiet, probably ready to play nurse but otherwise deferring to the experts. He wasn't sure if he wanted to bother trying or not. Nothing had ever worked in the past, and it didn't really work on Steve either, so why would it work on him now?

At his extended silence, Steve spoke up. "Bucky, just try it," he said. "If it works, you'll feel better and this'll go easier. If it doesn't, no harm done."

In Bucky's pain and panic-fogged brain, that made sense enough, and he held up his right hand for a pill wordlessly. He waited until he felt Pepper place a mid-sized round pill on his palm. He looked at the blue pill with the number thirty on it. "What's the thirty mean?"

"Thirty milligrams," Bruce said. "That's not the highest dose I've ever seen, but it's rarely given over ten, due to the acetaminophen content. This is pure oxycodone, it's just the opiate. So I was able to go a bit higher. I don't promise it'll work, and I don't promise it won't work too well and knock you out for awhile. Steve's going to be here the whole time, he won't let us do anything to you while you sleep if that's what happens."

The idea of passing out while these three strangers worked on him didn't please him much. He glanced at Steve, who nodded. "Bruce is right, I'm not leaving, I won't let anything happen to you. Take the medicine. If it works on you, you can count your blessings."

With a sigh, Bucky popped the pill in his mouth. Pepper handed him the glass of water. He accepted it and took a swig, downing the pill, then handed the glass back.

Pepper set the water aside. "Bruce said we should give it about sixty seconds, see if it takes affect." She looked at Bruce's image.

Bruce nodded. "If not, we can call it a wash, but if it does anything, we can keep up with dosing until this is done."

Tony spoke up after a long sixty seconds had passed. "Okay. Time to get to work."

Bucky had to shove aside how much Tony sounded like Howard. He hoped the Percocet would knock him out enough so that his brain would stop playing Howard's screams in that burning car as the last time he'd heard that voice. Maybe the medicine could make him remember working in the Howling Commandos for awhile.

Tony gingerly tugged on the piece of shrapnel caught in Bucky's arm. Bucky winced, not even bothering to steady his breath or prevent the whine that went with it. "So how'd this happen?" Tony asked. "What'd you do, try to catch a grenade?

"Yes," Steve said, giving Bucky an aggravated look.

Bucky glared at him. "Your back was turned."

"Children," Tony scolded in a mild tone of voice. "Okay, so we've got a piece of grenade jammed between the metal plates of your arm. You with it enough to explain how this thing works in general so JARVIS and I can run diagnostics properly?

Bucky didn't want to tell him. But part of him was still a Soldier, both an Army soldier and the Winter Soldier. He understood very well that when intel was needed, you gave it to the best of your ability, or the mission- or someone's life -was compromised. In this case, it was his own health that was compromised, which made having to speak up more palatable.

"The casing is made from biomechitum, it's a rare metal alloy that allows the metal to move in organic ways." He was forced to stop, close his eyes, and try to will his brain to cooperate past the noise in it. "The plates can shift according to computer commands to absorb impacts in a way that organic material would."

"Which is how this piece got lodged," Tony interrupted. "The plates shifted at the wrong time."

Bucky nodded once. "Yeah. My flesh arm is still under there, or part of it. The shrapnel is embedded just below it. The entirety of the arm is controlled by computers. The computers hook up to the nerves in my arm directly through wires." Another pause. Easy. They can help, but intel first. "The weight of the arm is primarily held up by my own shoulder, but there are nerve connections all way up into where the port goes under the skin, not just at the stump end of the flesh arm."

"That explains why the nerves are responding negatively all the way up his face and into his side," Bruce said. "If those are hooked into his shoulders, those nerves are all interconnected. Combined with the muscle weakness elsewhere caused by pain fatigue..."

"We're lucky we got him in here at all," Tony finished. "You said this shrapnel is below the flesh?" At Bucky's nod, Tony tapped the shrapnel, causing Bucky suck in a sharp breath and clench his right fist. "Good. Means we don't have to worry about tearing in there to clean out a flesh wound." He eyed Bucky. "And I'm going to guess from the constant pain responses when I move that thing that it's partly cut some nerve wires. It's gonna hurt when I pull it out."

Bucky grit his teeth. "It'll pass."

"Better than leaving it in," Tony said. "That Percocet working yet?"

Bucky shook his head. Beside him, Bruce sighed. "Well, it was worth a shot. I'll have Pepper give him another one after the shrapnel's yanked, just to see."

"You're the doctor, Bruce," Pepper said. "Just say when."

More medicine. More experimentation, more being studied, more being worked on and suddenly that chair didn't feel different enough. He felt his right hand begin to shake as the chaos in his head began to drown out the pain again.

"Bucky." Steve's voice. Bucky managed to lift his head slightly to look at him. "It's okay. I'm not going to let anyone hurt you." He looked at Tony. "You got another one of those stools?"

Tony motioned behind him with a tool that amounted to a very big pair of pliers. "Help yourself."

Steve kicked a stool over to sit in front of him, well out of the way of the medical team and the engineer. Right where Bucky would be able to see him at all times. Easy to focus attention on. "Hey. You know nobody here's gonna hurt you. Not like that."

Bucky wished that Percocet would kick in and make him too flighty to be fighting off anxiety on top of pain.

He felt the shrapnel shift slightly in his artificial nerves and he glanced over. Tony had a firm grip on it with the pliers. "You want something to bite down on?"

Bucky shook his head.

"Okay, on three." Bucky turned his head back to look at Steve while Tony counted- "One, two, three!"

Nerves shrieked like a death knell all up and down his arm, up into his flesh, into the weight-bearing shoulder, along every connected nerve all the way up into his neck and his brain. His left eye went completely blind and he thought he was screaming; maybe he was, or maybe that was just the noise in his brain from the pain itself.

"Okay, no spraying sparks," Tony said from somewhere fifty miles to Bucky's left. "JARVIS, get me a schematic, I want to see how many wires need replacing and what computers are going to have to be repaired."

"Yes, sir," JARVIS said.

Bucky leaned his head back against the head rest, sweat beaded on his forehead and his breath coming in shallow little gasps. Pain kinda hurt, he decided, which was the best his brain could come up with.

Pepper gently wiped away the sweat with the wet washcloth, and with how overheated his face felt from the the whole entire ordeal, it felt pleasantly cool. Bruce then made Pepper hand over another Percocet. "Is it working?" she asked once Bucky had swallowed the pill.

"Dunno," Bucky said, trying to breathe deeply. "Feeling kinda vague, but still feel the pain."

"Then it's doing it's job," Bruce said. "Some medicines don't make the pain go away, as much as just make you too tired to care."

"Still care." He looked above his head, looking for a machine he already knew wasn't there.

"It's not there," Steve said, and Bucky didn't even have to ask how Steve knew what he was doing. They'd been best friends and partners for so many years that even with the damage from Hydra, they could read each other. Mostly. Usually.

Pepper put one hand just above his head, her palm resting on his sweat soaked hair. That had to feel disgusting. "See? No machine. Still feeling out of it?"

He took her kindness for what it was. It helped Steve's presence make more of an impact against memories of Hydra's treatment. Nobody in Hydra was half that worried about his comfort.

"Yeah."

"Good. That means the medicine's working."

"Or trying to," Bruce added. "With your physiology, that might be the best we can hope for."

Bucky made a grunting noise that was supposed to be a thank you, but between the low grade but ongoing not so happy nerve responses and the medicine, he was losing focus.

Speaking of focus, he wanted to see what Tony was doing to his arm. He knew Tony wouldn't harm him, but Bucky's paranoia wasn't killed by the medicine. He flopped his head over to watch Tony manipulate a holographic image of the arm.

The spot where the shrapnel had embedded didn't look nearly as bad as it felt. At Tony's command, the outer layer of biomechitum disappeared, leaving a flesh stump and computers and wires that hooked into the flesh at all points.

"Okay, looks like we have several wires we're going to repair. Solder on patches for the missing sections. Some we can just put back together. Looks like these two computers here might have to have their casings rebuilt. We'll check their innards, first. Make sure we don't have anything to repair in there." He looked at Bucky. "With your permission, I'm going to hook up some diagnostics cables once the wires are repaired and look for junk programming that Hydra might've installed. This thing was made in '45, right?"

Bucky managed a nod.

Tony looked back at the half-butchered hologram. "Pretty impressive technology for '45. Impressive by my standards, actually. JARVIS, what do you think?"

"The technology is unfamiliar to me, sir, but it does not seem beyond our capabilities."

"Love to hear that," Tony said, dismissing the image and turning back to the real thing. "How're you feeling? Bruce, think Pepper should give him another pill? Steady supply took the edge off for Cap."

"Let's see how long what he's had works first," Bruce said from Bucky's other side. "If it starts to wear off and he consents, we'll try another."

"What's this junk programming you asked Bucky about?" Steve asked, for which Bucky felt grateful. That had passed by his attention with Tony's question about when the arm was built.

"It doesn't look like Hydra's replaced anything except maybe something in basic repairs," Tony said. "JARVIS, replicate me some wiring matching this copper alloy, wouldja?" He wheeled out of Bucky's sight, somewhere off behind the chair. "But the computers would need regular software updates to keep up with maintenance without hardware updates. Updates upon updates upon updates eventually-" he wheeled himself back over with several lengths of wire. "-build up gunk that can cause the arm to not function properly. As long as I'm in here, it'd make sense for me to clear that out, maybe replace it entirely with something JARVIS can whip up while I'm dirtying my hands. We can also check for control keys or malware."

"Bucky?"

Bucky slowly turned his head to look at Steve. "Hm?"

"You okay with Tony playing around with your arm once it's repaired? Nobody's going to make you be experimented on if you don't want them to."

Bucky sneered at him, or at least attempted to. "Thanks for putting it that way, you little punk."

Steve gave him one of those patient looks that told Bucky he could hurl all sorts of abuse at him, or even ignore him, and Steve was going to just keep waiting for an answer.

Fine, he wanted one, he'd get one. "Clean it. I don't want anything of Hydra left in there."

"Can't say that I blame you," Tony said, and Bucky felt more painful feedback in his arm, though this was not as bad as when the shrapnel had been lodged in, as Tony went to work. Bucky heard the sounds of a soldering gun and felt the painful tingle of wires being messed with. "You got lucky," Tony said. "None of the breaks are into the nerves themselves. All I have to mess with is the wiring."

Bucky didn't answer beyond a noise that tried to be more, keeping his attention on Steve. Steve was something that was a stable point in his life, kept him grounded in the present and not living in the past. And being in a chair like that with his arm being worked on really made it hard to not go skydiving back into the past.

The pain came and went, a semi-regular ebb and flow, and Bucky's mental strength to do anything was dwindling. Much longer and he might pass out again. He didn't like that idea.

Pepper regularly pressed the washcloth to his heated face, wiping away sweat and cooling his skin, making quiet, soothing noises. Even though he was pretty sure she wasn't in the medical profession, she had good bedside manner, he had to give her that.

It took about a half hour all told, and Bucky felt more and more detached as the pain continued. It was a bad walk down memory lane. But Pepper was good at keeping up with the physical symptoms that didn't need medication, and Steve kept talking to him, kept him from passing back out again.

Eventually, the only pain left was leftover soreness in the muscles that had been affected by the misfiring nerves, and he just felt exhausted. He took in a deep breath, held it, then released it slowly.

"Feeling better?" Steve asked, sounding like his mouth was dry from talking Bucky through the whole procedure.

"'m fine," Bucky said, then frowned, noticing something odd in the absence of the nerve pain. He felt nothing at all from his arm. He flopped his head over to see what was wrong, saw small cables hooked into a few of the computers still exposed from the mechanical surgery. The cables further hooked into a computer that Tony was staring intently at, tapping and scrolling and studying. "What're you doing?" he demanded with as much strength as he could muster.

Tony looked at him. "Removing that gunk programming," he said as if it should be completely obvious. Then a lightbulb went off over his head. "Oh! You can't feel the arm anymore, can you? Don't worry, response will come back in a few minutes. Once I have this out, I'll put in something better to replace it. You're fine. Keep listening to Cap."

His attitude was so much like Howard's that Bucky had to grind his teeth together to keep from remembering more than he was ready for. It also made him want to hit Tony, because god knew he'd wanted to hit Howard a time or two, too.

Steve, hero of the day, kept his gaze steady on Bucky, kept him from drifting off into the wonderful and exciting land of a past that nobody in their right mind wanted. He asked Tony questions that they both knew Bucky wanted to ask but was in no condition to ask himself. "You said something about malware or a control key. What would Hydra put one of those in for?"

Bucky didn't see if Tony looked away from the computer. "Well, malware might be accidental, though I don't see them making that accident with our friend's arm. If activated, it'd ... well, you've probably seen or heard about what malware does to regular computers. It hijacks programs, makes them stop working right. I'm not counting on find anything like that. A control key, on the other hand..." Tony trailed off a second, and Bucky found himself looking over at him, trying to see the computer screen from his angle. "Which I just found. Basically, it'd be a way for someone with a big red button to deactivate and take control of the arm." He looked at Bucky. "Who would've been holding that button?"

"Pierce," Bucky said without a bit of hesitation. He hadn't known about that safeguard in his arm, but he knew exactly who would've held that control.

"Mm." Tony turned back to his computer. "Well, we don't want to find out that there's a back up big red button out there. JARVIS, let's flush this thing down to whatever hole Hydra's hiding in. Find me the passcode."

"Yes, sir."

"How's the pain now?" Bruce asked.

Bucky closed his eyes, taking note of every ache and pain and tired bruised feeling up his left chest, shoulder, neck and face. "Just need some rest." Everything was tired from hurting.

"Which you'll be getting plenty of," Bruce said. "If you heal like Cap, you'll probably be only down a day, but I'll make sure Steve keeps you off your feet if he has to sit on you to do it. I'll be on call any time I'm needed. I can be flown out of New York in an emergency"

"About that flying thing," Tony spoke up from the other side. "Spangles, Jimmy, you two planning on going back to Kiev? Please say no."

"We're going back," Steve said before Bucky could say something nasty about the nickname. He _hated_ the name 'Jimmy'. "There's a Hydra base that needs to be taken care of."

And naturally, Steve failed to speak up on the matter for him. Thanks, jackass.

"Expecting any more Hydra operatives to fight off?" Tony didn't sound terribly pleased by Steve's answer, though hardly surprised.

"We didn't run into Hydra," Steve said. "The base is abandoned, we're just in to strip it bare so it can't be reused. We ran into some of those Russian separatists that are making pests of themselves right now."

Tony made a noise that didn't really respond to anything. "There, control key deactivated. You'll get your arm back in about thirty seconds once the new software's uploaded." He wheeled back away from the computer and into Bucky's peripheral vision. "Pepper's given me permission to make a new suit now that I've got my head on straight."

"Mostly because I know that it's going to be needed some day. Bad people are still going to do bad things and you're Avengers, you can't get away from it," Pepper said, as if this had already been discussed before Steve and Bucky had even gotten to the States. "I'd rather there be more ways for us all to stay safe than the alternative."

Tony picked up the thought train. "You're going to stay with us until I get one built, have a chance to rest, then I'm going with you."

Steve looked at Bucky, who wasn't pleased at the idea of having to work with someone besides Steve, then back at Tony. "We appreciate it but-"

"I know," Tony interrupted. "But two things. One, I just repaired that arm, I don't want you two coming back with it all messed up again. I value tech too much for that. For another, if you die, I may have to just cry and nobody wants to see that. Me crying is just a sobby, snot-filled, red-eyed mess. I'm not a pretty crier. So let me come with."

Steve looked at Pepper. Pepper gave him the sort of smile that a woman in charge and used to being listened to would give someone gearing up to argue with her. "I'm not a pretty crier either, Steve."

When Steve looked at Bruce for help, Bruce shook his head. "You don't want me involved. I'm going to be in New York and be ready in case I need to set up the medical center as Avengers triage."

Well, at least they weren't going to have to talk the Hulk out of going with them. Bucky wanted to blow that place to hell, but they had to search it first.

"And okay," Tony said, "I admit I want to come datamine the place. I got better equipment for that then you two probably do. I want to help chase Hydra down their snake hole, where they're hiding the body. I'm not taking your job, but I can help."

Bucky wasn't going to deny that they didn't have the same level of equipment that Tony had. He decided to leave it up to Steve. Bucky wanted nothing more to do with Tony until Steve had told him about Howard; Bucky felt like they'd taken advantage of him enough as it was.

He doubted that the next words out of Steve's mouth came from a place of wanting to take further advantage of his friend, but more out of a place of knowing his friend well enough that any other answer was going to get ignored. "All right. Bucky should rest awhile anyway." Steve looked at Bucky. "Don't act like you're not exhausted from how long that shrapnel was jammed in there."

Bucky stretched and rotated his mechanical arm, hearing the soothing whine of the servos, much quieter with Tony's new programming. He winced at the way it pulled on the muscles it was attached to. "I won't." He felt like a bruise. He wanted to lay down or just sit back in a chair that _did not look like that one_ and relax. The massive anxiety attack just trying to get him into the chair in the first place was tiring on its own.

Yeah, a few hours of rest sounded nice.

"Great!" Tony clapped his hands together. "You two are staying with us while I build. Bruce, thank you for your help, we will wake you at all hours of the day if we need you again."

Bruce shrugged in an easy-going sort of manner, like he was used to going along with the far more outgoing Tony's plans. "I'm fine with that, just as long as I don't get dragged to Kiev. We'd like Kiev to still be there when we leave, I think."

"Excellent point," Tony said. Then he looked between Steve and Bucky. "I hate to say this, but this isn't exactly the posh primary home I used to live in that terrorists decided to blow up. It doesn't have an abundance of guest rooms. In fact, I only have one guest room.. I hope you two don't have any strong feelings against that that'd put one of you on the couch?"

Pepper looked over at Steve. "We have a den we can set up as a spare bedroom if needed."

"No, we can share a room," Steve said. "Spending a few days in a single room isn't going to kill us."

Tony nodded once, and Bucky could tell just from how similar his expressions were to Howard's that he had something he was about to say that was going to be both stupid and considerate. "Okay, just so you know, there's only one bed. It's a king, you could fit a third super soldier between you, but there's not any domestic disputes we should worry about, or do I not get to make that joke?"

Yup, stupid and considerate at the same time. Just like Howard.

Steve sighed in a theatrical manner, lifting his head and staring at the ceiling. "No, nothing like that. Bucky gets away with that joke, you do not. And _yes,_ it's a joke."

Tony held up his hands in surrender. "Wasn't going to care one way or another, Spangles, as long as everyone's adult, consenting, and happy. But okay, warning received. I don't get to make that joke. To you, anyway. We'll see if Bucky lets me get away with it once he's not too tired to do more than stare at me."

Bucky blinked a couple times, then realized that Tony was right, he'd done nothing in reaction but stare in a tired manner at him. "You fixed my arm. You get to live."

"Close enough," Tony said. "Okay. Cap, get our sleepy friend upstairs. Pepper, I'll let you lead them to their room."

"I thought I'd let them find it themselves," Pepper said in a tone much too sweet to be anything but sarcasm.

While Pepper emptied the glass into the bowl and managed to pick up the pill bottle, the bowl and the glass all at once, Steve stepped over to Bucky, handing him his shirt and tactical vest. Bucky pulled on his shirt, but just held the vest. It felt a lot lighter than it should've. "Where're my guns?"

"I got 'em," Steve said. He pointed over to a work bench. "I put them down there."

Oh, yeah. That's right. Oh wonderful pain and panic, what a wonderful memory killer they were.

"You can leave them there for now," Tony said. "Just extra stuff to carry upstairs, and I have a feeling that Cap's not going to let you do more than necessary right now."

"Good call," Steve said. He held out his hand to help Bucky up. " We're in good hands here. And you need rest."

Bucky didn't protest, letting Steve pull him to his feet. He took a second to steady himself on his feet, before giving Tony a look that tried to be venomous. Bucky had a feeling it failed, but hey, A for effort. _"Never_ call me 'Jimmy' again."

Tony's eyebrows raised. "I hear hatred for that name."

"Hatred normally reserved for vengeful gods."

"Right. Bucky it is, then. Go rest."

Feeling satisfied that the issue had been properly addressed, he let Steve put a hand on his flesh shoulder to keep him balanced while they followed Pepper up the stairs.


	3. Nowhere To Go

With the cause of the pain gone, Bucky only really had to sleep off the lingering effects- mostly muscle fatigue -for a few hours. He hadn't argued with Steve when Steve dropped him into the bed in their guest room, just kicked off his boots and utility belt and laid down on top of the covers, curled up on his right side.

When he woke up, he felt groggy, as if waking up from not enough sleep. But the lingering pain was gone, and he didn't want to sleep all day, so he got up. Looking around the room, he realized just how big it was, even with a king bed dominating the center of it. Good, he could make Steve sleep on the bed while he took the floor, there'd be room.

It wasn't what he really wanted, but he didn't need to make Steve uncomfortable with what his brain thought he needed to avoid nightmares. Having Steve drag Bucky's bed into his room to share the space had been enough. He wasn't going to ask for more. He hadn't even asked for that much, but having been given it, he wasn't going to turn it down.

As he woke up more, he noticed that his hair was probably a mess and he had no brush to de-snarl it with, and his mouth tasted terrible from sleep. He wanted to brush his teeth, but there again lay the problem of no toiletries. He and Steve hadn't exactly packed for an extended stay at a friend's house.

At least there looked to be a private bathroom attached to the guest room.

In the bathroom, he discovered two brand new toothbrushes, both still in package, and a tube of toothpaste on one side of the sink counter, and a comb and a brush on the other side, set up just how their bathroom at home was. Someone must've run out and gotten the basics for them, and Steve had arranged them to Bucky's liking. He'd find out who all he had to thank later, for now, his hair needed brushing, his teeth needed brushing, and his bladder would really appreciate getting emptied.

Actually, he also really needed a shower. He smelled strongly of explosives and sweat.

If Steve could sneak in toiletries without waking him, maybe he'd snuck in some clean clothes too. A sweep of the room revealed nothing, but a search of the closet proved fruitful. Steve's uniform was already hanging up, along with Bucky's tactical vest, with his belt and face mask up on the shelf above the rod. Taking up the rest of closet were four pairs of clean jeans, two with shorter legs than the others, and six clean shirts that looked the right size. On the floor was a bag with other clothing needs, including two pairs of sweat pants and oversized t-shirts that could service as night clothes.

Good. He could shower and have something clean to change into. He tossed the bag with the sleep clothes up on the bed for later and headed back into the bathroom.

Once showered, which was something of a chore, the bathroom equipped with a tub and shower rather than the shower stall he was used to and vastly preferred for many reasons- one of which was a demon he wasn't ready to face yet- he dressed, and decided it was time to find where Steve was.

He knew that would probably plant him into the middle of an awkward social situation with at least one stranger. He was pretty sure that Tony would be downstairs, working on that new suit they were stuck waiting on, but that didn't account for Pepper.

There were voices just down the hall, one of whose was Steve's. He followed the sounds of people into what was the living room, if he remembered clearly from earlier.

Pepper and Steve both looked up when he stepped into the room. Bucky felt like he was the center of attention against his will and he didn't like it. _Someone please say something so I don't have to._

"Feeling better, Buck?" Steve asked, immediately breaking that uncomfortable silence.

Bucky answered with a noise of confirmation, but not precisely with words.

"Come sit," Pepper said. "Consider that an official request from your hostess. Tony's downstairs, I'll make him come up for dinner, so you're stuck with me right now." She gave him a smile that he found immensely personable, rather like Mama's. If she was even half the woman Mama was, their stay might not actually be too bad.

Speaking. Right. Giving an answer usually required speaking. "You're Pepper?"

Way to state the obvious.

Her smile turned into an obviously amused grin. "I am. Tony's permanent keeper and occasional girlfriend."

He made a noise of acknowledgement and looked at Steve. "Steve needs the same. I'm a decent substitute."

Steve covered his face with his hands while Pepper laughed. "Okay, I said this before, but he is the _only_ one that gets away with that joke."

"Tony's gonna make it anyway," Pepper warned him.

"Tony might find himself beaned upside the head for it," Steve said, then looked at Bucky and pointed at the couch next to him. "Come sit. You make me nervous when you stand like you're some kind of Secret Service bodyguard."

Bucky gave him a bland look, but went to sit down anyway. "I'm not going to do anything."

"I remember how you were as a kid, it's a valid fear."

Pepper grinned at them. "It's exciting, getting to see how the two biggest war heroes of the twentieth century interact just like normal people. It's definitely not the part I learned in history class."

Bucky couldn't tell how much of that was teasing, and how much of that was dead serious. In a deliberately slow fashion, Bucky turned his head to look at Steve, wanting to ask if this was how Steve normally felt around his modern friends. Steve just gave Pepper a look that said she was lucky he liked her. "You get used to this," he said in answer to Bucky's unspoken question.

"Sorry," Pepper said, although she seemed more excited than sorry. "My final paper in high school history class was on you, so this is kinda cool for me, getting to meet a childhood hero."

Bucky stared. He wasn't sure he'd heard that right. "I'm the subject of high school history papers?"

"Well, you were of mine," Pepper said. "And I really doubt I was the only kid in this country since the end of World War II that did a paper on you. All the old comics, the news footage, you were all part of that. You're part of the Captain America story." She shrugged. "Everyone always did their reports on Steve, but I admired your loyalty in the stories, so I wanted to do mine on you." She grinned. "Just so you know, I aced it."

Bucky didn't feel he should be admired for loyalty when he'd tried to beat Steve's face in, but he didn't want to really go there, not with himself, not with Steve, and most definitely not with someone who was almost a stranger who apparently had been an admirer. "I'd be disappointed if you hadn't."

There, that was safe to say, right?

Something about the way he said that must've betrayed his thoughts- when did everyone start being able to read him? -because Pepper's expression turned a bit more solemn as she said "don't worry, you might not remember, you were in a lot of pain, but I was down there. I heard. I don't think you should blame yourself for anything Hydra made you do. That wasn't you." She looked at Steve, a fond smile on her face. "You nearly got yourself killed taking a hit for Steve. That tells me you've still got that loyalty."

Steve put his arm on Bucky's shoulder, using it as an armrest the way he did whenever he wanted to remind Bucky that he was now the taller one because he was a jackass. "He likes me too much to let someone else hurt me. Only he gets to do that."

Bucky could tell that Steve was trying to make interacting with Pepper as normal for Bucky as interacting with just the two of them was. But it just made him feel awkward, so he didn't give one of his usual responses, just shot him a glare before looking off somewhere over Pepper's shoulder.

Pepper moved her head, getting more directly into his line of sight again. "My face is a few inches to the right from there."

Bucky refocused his eyes on her, not sure how to respond. He didn't know her, he wasn't even used to talking around other people anymore. While he knew _how_ to act, he was pretty sure he couldn't actually do it, not anymore, not yet. "Sorry."

"No no, it's okay," Pepper said, giving him that smile from earlier. "Just wondering if you're still tired. You were spacing out a bit."

Bucky's skin crawled from the sensation of Steve staring at him, and he turned his head just a few degrees towards Steve, but refused to meet his gaze. Steve was pushing; he was _supposed_ to push, at least a little, but it didn't feel like something he was ready for. Bucky didn't want to do it, not then, but... well, if not then, when? They weren't in public, they were in a private home with time to at least _try_ to learn to socialize again, with people Steve trusted.

People Steve was lying to, but that was another matter to be dealt with later.

"Sorry," he said again, looking down at his mismatched hands, flexing the left one slightly. It was a weapon, and weapons didn't belong in a social setting. "I don't know what your high school report said, but I'm ... I'm not exactly good at talking to people like I was back then."

"That's fine," Pepper said. "I understand. I wouldn't be terribly social with other people in your shoes either." There were the sounds of her shifting in her chair, and Bucky looked up to see her crossing her legs under her, the giant fluffy bucket chair she was in big enough for the freedom of movement. "But to restate something said earlier, you're safe here. Nobody's going to hurt you, nobody's going to use what happened to you against you. And if you don't want to talk, that's fine too. I can talk to Steve. But stick around, listen in." She grinned, tilting her head forward a bit. "You might find that socializing with me isn't so hard."

Bucky practically upended his brain, looking for an appropriate response. But since he couldn't really read her tone or her intentions, he had no idea how to respond.

So he simply didn't.

Pepper didn't seem deterred by his silence. "And I don't entirely know how social conventions were back in your time, but if there's any issue about chatting up a woman without her significant other present, trust me when I say chat away." Her expression changed to one of adoring exasperation as she glanced behind her towards the stairs to the basement. "It's never stopped Tony. Although with him, it now stops at merely chatting. He knows better."

"Pepper Potts, the miracle worker," Steve said, motioning towards her for emphasis. "Settled down a Stark man."

That statement seemed to please Pepper. She sat up taller, hands folded on her ankles in front of her. "Unto each generation, a chosen one is born."

Helluva thing to be chosen for.

"Okay, that's a reference to something," Steve said. "Wanna catch the old guys up on this?"

"What, catch you up on my college days?" Pepper said. Her smile was disarming, pleasant and rather catching. Bucky found it easier to relax around her now than he had earlier, when her attention was focused solely on him. She'd simply made him part of the conversation, even without his participation.

"I don't think we need a blow-by-blow," Steve said. "Just what show is that from?"

" _Buffy: The Vampire Slayer_ ," Pepper said. "It started in the late nineties, just as I was going into college. Some of it's dated, but some of the snark remains strong."

That sounded familiar, and apparently to Steve as well, because a look of recognition crossed his face. "Oh, okay, yeah, I've heard some of the jokes. Joss Whedon, right?" He looked at Bucky, and Bucky wasn't sure why, not at first.

Oh.

Either Steve was turning to Bucky to be his internet nerd source, or he was trying too hard to include him. He flexed his left hand, trying to put away the weapon and be the friend. Or at least the person. "He's a nerd god, if social media is to be believed."

There. The words of Bucky, Steve's friend, and not the tight-lipped, complete psychotic mess of a partner that Steve had begged his friends a favor for. It wasn't a huge victory, but it was something.

"That's what I've heard," Pepper said. "If it wasn't secure before, it's been pretty much set in stone, at least according to People Magazine, with a series of comic book-based movies he directed a while back. I didn't see them personally, but the merchandising was everywhere."

"Comic books. Something I'm glad to see is still in the mainstream," Steve said. "My mom didn't like them, thought I could spend my time on better things, and we didn't really have the extra money for them anyway. Fortunately, I could read them when I was visiting Bucky and his family. One of his brothers collected them."

"Tony has some comic books," Pepper said. "Mint-condition, original print, some almost as old as he is. He considers it a good investment."

Steve raised his eyebrows, tilting his head forward. "Pepper. Tony has more money than China. Why does he need to invest in comic books?"

"We're discussing a man who felt a giant stuffed toy rabbit was an appropriate Christmas gift for me one year simply because it existed and he could buy it. You have to ask?"

Bucky had to resist the urge to tell Steve that he made such interesting friends. He also wanted to ask how that rabbit fit through the door, but the way Pepper said that made him think it probably didn't.

Steve shook his head. "You know, if he weren't obviously such a genius, I'd have to say that he had more money than brains, but it might just be common sense he's lacking."

Bucky turned his head to look at Steve with an incredulous expression. He wasn't even sidetracked by Pepper saying that Tony was certainly capable of being as dumb as bricks. Steve had just accused someone of not having common sense. Steve. There were so many ways the man had no common sense.

Steve caught the look and pointed a finger at him. _"You_ have no room to talk."

"You jumped on a grenade," Bucky said in that same slow and deliberate manner, as if talking to someone slow on the uptake and if he just spoke at the right speed, it might sink in.

"I thought it was gonna hurt someone!" Steve protested. "It was a dud anyway, and you've already burned my ears off on this issue."

"That is far from your only stellar example of idiocy."

Pepper interjected at that point. "Didn't you just play racquetball with one of those?"

While Steve gave him a smug look that he'd had perfected since they were small children, Bucky spared him a glare before looking at Pepper. "My arm can handle the blast, his tiny body would've been in little pieces all over the place." Then he shot Steve another dirty look. "And I was actually protecting someone who mattered."

He knew that might not have been the best subject to bring up around someone he still counted as a stranger, but then, if they all wanted for Bucky to become part of their circle of friends, they were going to have to get used to his fucked up morals.

As expected, Steve took in a deep breath before putting his hand on Bucky's shoulder, not quite a 'there there' gesture, more of a 'I don't like it but I accept it.' If Bucky ever changed his mind on that matter, it was going to take a long time to get there.

Pepper to the rescue. "Even so, it's rather disconcerting to know that Tony has friends with similar brains."

"Oh, Pepper, you knew that already," Steve said, not dropping his hand. "Or did you forget about something called New York?"

Pepper groaned, leaning back into her chair with a hand theatrically over her eyes. "Don't remind me." She looked at Bucky. "Have you been told this story?"

"I read the news reports."

"Not quite enough," Pepper said. "You're familiar with the Iron Man suits?"

"I know what the public knows." Which was actually quite a lot, given that SHIELD had records on it that went public, thank you Romanov. But he had a feeling that what he knew wasn't going to be enough for this story.

"His suits run on the arc reactors," she said. "Have you heard of them?"

Bucky nodded. "I don't know the technical details."

"I don't either," Pepper said. "So don't feel bad. But Tony uses them to power his suits. He took a low-on-power suit up into an enemy dimension through a portal carrying a live nuke."

That sounded exactly like something Steve would do, and Bucky frowned, wondering how he was suddenly supposed to keep up with two assholes that did shit like that. "We're all dumb here, aren't we?"

Pepper held up her hands, clearly wanting nothing to do with that title. "As long as nobody dies and I don't have to put my hand into anyone's chest cavity again, we're good, I suppose."

Bucky was forced to momentarily shut his brain down, because it just didn't want to parse what Pepper had just said. Surely that was not what it sounded like. People didn't have holes in their chest cavities big enough for a human hand, not even a smaller woman's hand. Unless they were dead. Maybe she was talking about someone who was dead.

He decided that had to be it.

"He must've had you helping with the arc reactor," Steve said, moving his arms to rest them on the back of the couch.

"He had me help change the original out with a stronger one," Pepper said.

Bucky suddenly found himself completely lost. He looked between them, hoping one would offer an explanation, because it was obvious that the chest cavity she'd reached into was Tony's and definitely _not_ a dead person.

"We lost you, didn't we?" Pepper asked.

Yes. Thank you for noticing. He nodded slowly.

"Welcome to my life the first couple years after I was found," Steve said. He motioned to Pepper. "He's her boyfriend, I'll let her explain this one."

"Actually, it's not a bad idea to try to catch him up on all the Avengers lore," Pepper said. "You're the only one he's familiar with, and he's missed a couple years with you, and everything with the rest of us."

Oh, story time. Bucky almost pulled his feet up onto the couch to cross them underneath him until he remembered that he had his boots on, and they were rather dusty and probably not furniture appropriate. Oh well. Instead, he just leaned forward a bit, his elbows resting on his knees, ready to listen intently.

Steve pointed at him, looking at Pepper. "That's Bucky for 'I approve of this plan.' I'll let you start off, Tony's the one that was first approached about the Avengers Initiative."

"Yes, but you were the first Avenger," Pepper pointed out.

"And as you said, he already knows all that part of my history in this group. Tony was the first one Nick approached, you start."

Pepper sighed with a dramatic flair. "Well, okay, but we don't tell Tony that his girlfriend finds him an interesting subject to talk about. It might go to his head." There was that fond sarcasm that only a smartass who loved someone could manage.

Steve laughed. "Don't worry, my lips are sealed and his-" he nodded in Bucky's direction "-are pretty much permanently stitched shut."

That wasn't really true, Bucky spoke to Steve, far more now than he had when he first came home, but Steve was right in that he didn't talk around anyone else ever. He let it slide.

It took a surprisingly long time to catch him up. There was a good decade or so history, starting with Bruce's experiment-gone-wrong and, to- as far as anyone knew- the destruction of SHIELD. Pepper had obviously done some self-editing when she got to the most recent excitement in her and Tony's part of the story. Bucky decided that as long as she didn't pry into what happened to bring him back home, he wouldn't pry at whatever she wasn't saying.

"Hopefully, it'll stay quiet for awhile," Pepper said once they'd gotten to 'the end'. "Although I know by saying that, I just cursed us all."

"Thank you, I'll be sure to blame you when something bad happens," Steve said.

"I can own that," Pepper said, then glanced at her watch. "Oh god, time went fast. JARVIS, let Tony know that it's dinner time, and he has thirty minutes to get to a stop point to come join us for food."

"Of course, Miss Potts."

Pepper didn't move to get up to go make that food or call for it or anything, sitting still with her head tilted to the side slightly, as listening for something.

"Mister Stark says he will eat later," JARVIS said after a few seconds.

Pepper nodded once, clearly expecting that answer. "Tell him that he's not allowed to live on Red Bulls and No-Doze anymore. He comes up for dinner, or I come down and take away his toys."

Another moment of silence, followed by "Mister Stark says that is unfair, but you have won. He will be up in thirty minutes."

"That's better," Pepper said, getting up. "Excuse me, guys, but I have to go cook if we want to eat tonight."

"You want help?" Steve asked, and Bucky had a feeling he might get volunteered if she answered that she did.

Thankfully for Bucky's nerves, she shook her head. "No, guests don't do the cooking around here," she said. She motioned to the TV. "You're welcome to turn something on if you want."

"Thanks, Pepper," Steve said. "Just call us if you want help."

She smiled. "I'll call you when the food is done so you can eat it." She turned and headed out of the room, leaving Steve and Bucky and the TV alone.

Bucky looked over at Steve. "So did I pass your social test?"

"You didn't do bad," Steve said, which wasn't really a yes, but not precisely a no, either. And he didn't have to say it like someone proud of a little kid for trying really hard to play a band instrument and only having marginal success.

"You should be grateful you got anything." He didn't give Steve time to do more than make an expression like he was going to say something that might just piss Bucky off. He didn't know what, but there was probably something. "I'm _trying,_ okay? I'm doing better than I did with Sam, aren't I?"

Steve's expression went from placating to acceptance. "You are. If you're not careful, you'll end up with a couple friends out of this."

Bucky didn't answer. He didn't want Steve to know that he really didn't _want_ any other friends. Having friends meant more people who knew what was done to him, things that brought up all sorts of negative emotions. It meant more people who might look at him with pity, or get frustrated with his abrupt departures from social situations. More people he'd have to hide from seeing the effects of what Hydra did.

His sickening display over the chair was more than enough for them to have seen, but at least he could argue that most of that was due to the pain. They probably wouldn't believe him, or at least Steve wouldn't, but he could throw up that smoke screen.

"I really wish you'd tell me what's bothering you," Steve said. "I know something's going through your head, and you're not going to tell me."

"I'm _trying,"_ Bucky repeated through clenched teeth. He didn't want to have this argument again, didn't want it at home, and definitely not here, where there were other people Bucky wasn't actually ready to have in his life.

With a sigh, Steve gripped the back of Bucky's neck, giving him back the comfort of human contact. "All right. I'm not going to make you."

Not yet, anyway, Bucky heard that unspoken part. He'd been dodging most of Steve's attempts at getting him to talk about the things actually bothering him for the last five months, but sooner or later, Steve was going to manage to catch him at just the right time for Bucky to start babbling things at him in the middle of an episode.

If Bucky were a praying man, he'd be praying that Steve would at least have the mercy to not push him until they got home and Pepper and Tony weren't around anymore.

After dinner was a few hours of more socialization, although it was more accompanied by the TV than direct interaction. It helped his nerves from winding up tighter, but it didn't help relax them.

Pepper had declared bedtime for her and Tony, entirely without input from Tony, and while she'd offered to let Steve and Bucky stay up with the TV, they both declined. It'd been a long damn day.

That left them in their bedroom, the bag with the sleepwear on a single king-sized bed that Bucky thought was comfortable enough, but he'd already planned on sleeping on the floor.

"Which side of the bed do you want?" Steve asked.

"Neither," Bucky said, walking over to the bed and digging around in the bag. "I'm sleeping on the floor."

"No, you're not," Steve said, tone firm and promising a full-blown argument if Bucky didn't give him his way.

Bucky finally pulled out a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt that would be too chilly to wear anywhere but under the covers. He tossed the bag to Steve for him to find his own clothes. "Steve. I am sleeping on the floor. I did it all the time back in DC."

Steve scowled at him, walking over and dropping the bag on the bed. "Yeah, I remember how little sleep you got when you did that too." He searched the bag. "If sharing a bed is that awkward, I'll take the floor."

"Oh sure, make it sound like it's my fault," Bucky said as he started to change clothes. "I'm not going to make you feel uncomfortable when I can sleep on the floor. I'd be a bad boyfriend if I did."

"You know, if you're going to run by that joke, you just gave wonderful incentive as to why we should share," Steve said, pulling out the other pair of sweat pants that were slightly longer in the leg than the pair Bucky was pulling on. "However, since I don't want my brain to go down that path for fear of my sanity, I'm going to point out that I have not had one problem since you came home doing whatever I had to to help you feel better. I don't mind sharing the bedroom; it was my idea to begin with. I don't understand why that helped, but it did, and it doesn't bother me to do it. And if you're wanting to take the floor for my sake, don't. It's not like we haven't shared a bed before."

Bucky drew in a deep breath, holding it while he counted to five in three different languages, before exhaling in a rush of air. "You know, despite our jokes, we're not actually supposed to be sharing a bed unless we have no choice." He knew that would go over like Titanic; Steve and Bucky had never cared about the present day's cultural hang ups over platonic affection between male friends.

"That's awful modern of you," Steve said. "Why would you even make that argument?" Yeah, that was what Bucky had expected him to say. "A few days, or even a week, of sharing a bed so big we probably wouldn't even notice we were sharing, is really not that big of a deal."

Bucky couldn't even get a chance to open his mouth in protest, before Steve kept going. "Bucky. Listen to me. I don't want you sleeping on the floor, and I don't want you thinking you have to for my comfort. We're family. If there were two beds, I would be telling you to sleep in your own bed. But there's one bed, it's big enough for us to have plenty of room so you won't kick me in your sleep. I'm fine with it. I don't see why you aren't."

Bucky didn't want to admit why. Admitting it to himself had been hard enough, he wasn't sure he could admit to Steve why he was craving the safety of being close by sharing the bed. The nightmares would be easier to dismiss, maybe even easier to avoid.

"It's not strange to you?" he asked, one last attempt at getting Steve to see his side without him able to actually say what his side was.

"No," Steve said, shaking his head firmly. "I don't see how it's any different from the stunt you pulled on a regular basis to get me sleeping in a bed that wasn't terrible like my own was."

"That wasn't much of a trick when you knew what I was doing," Bucky pointed out. "And that is _completely_ different, you're not trying to take care of someone with a bad back like yours was."

Steve dropped the bag in the general direction of the closet and sat down on the edge of the bed. "It's not different, because I say so. I can tell something about it's bothering you. If the best thing I can do to help you get past something that Hydra did to you is share a bed with you for a few nights while we stay with friends, I'll do it. Besides," there he gave Bucky a stern look, "you spent several hours of the last twenty-four in shock from mechanical nerve damage. If you can trick me over a bad back, I can do the same to you for even just one night over your injury."

With a noise of frustration, Bucky sat down next to him. "Fine. But I still think it was different when I did it because of your back. I slept off the shock earlier."

"No, it's not." Steve sounded frustrated by that point. "There's something more going through your head, and I think some of it is a result of earlier. Just because the condition isn't apparent doesn't lessen its need to be taken care of. I don't know what they did that caused this, but I want to help fix it."

Bucky tapped his finger in agitation on his left knee, trying to formulate a response that Steve really did deserve at this point. But when he thought about actually trying to put into words what they did in a way that the clinical project files couldn't convey, his brain shut down and he developed psychological lockjaw. "I'm trying," was all he could manage, just repeating himself from earlier. It sounded rather empty.

Steve put his arm around Bucky's shoulders. "I know you are, Buck. I'm not trying to be impatient. I just want to help. So let me help a little bit by making you sleep on the bed. Let me do that much, please."

"All right, you win. It was a dumb argument anyway." Bucky glanced back over his shoulder once Steve and taken his arm back. He slept on his right side, and would not normally want to be on the side of the bed that had him facing Steve, but the bed was big enough that sleeping there would not force them to spoon so they both fit. Good. Sharing a bed with an annoying little brother for a few days wasn't all that strange to him, but having to cuddle just to fit was going too far. "Pick a side then."

"I'll take this side and make you walk around the bed," Steve said like a jackass.

"I'm smothering you in your sleep," Bucky said, standing.

While Bucky made the trip around the end of the bed to the other side, Steve half stood and yanked the covers down for him to settle in. "What, you take a hit from a grenade for me, but you'll threaten me just for picking a side of the bed for you to sleep in?"

"You're a punk," Bucky said, pulling down the covers on his side of the bed. "Go to sleep."

"Jerk."

Once they were settled, Steve sounded like he'd drifted off fairly quickly, his breath becoming noticeably even, steady. The sound of not being alone while trying to sleep was comforting. He still had never told Steve why he needed that, wasn't sure he'd be able to get it from his head to his mouth. Maybe someday. Not yet.

He glanced backwards over his shoulder, making the irrational voice in his head shut up by making sure that Steve was actually there. _See? He's there. Shut up._

For once, the voice listened to him.


	4. And Lost Inside Her Empty Mind

Pepper established a firm routine for them, mostly to keep Tony from going overboard with a lack of sleep or food.

"You're not in your twenties anymore," she told him at his first protest. Apparently, his age was a sore point, because he pouted at her, then agreed, pretending he only was for her sake so she wouldn't worry.

Breakfast and dinner were with both Pepper and Tony, the latter otherwise in the basement, leaving Bucky to sit with Pepper and Steve as they visited, with no polite way of extracting himself.

Fortunately, the need to do so went down a little bit at a time as Bucky became more familiar with Pepper. She was charming with a good smile and a good sense of humor. Unabashed sarcasm and sass were part of that humor, and it made Bucky laugh.

He decided that maybe having other friends besides Steve wasn't too bad of an idea. As long as they were all smartasses. Smartasses were the best people.

But while making friends and staying with them was nice, after a couple days, his mind decided he wanted a break. He wanted to go back to his own place, with his own bedroom, his own bathroom with the sometimes sputtering pipes, and his own damn kitchen where he could cook to his black heart's content. Pepper's cooking was good, but Bucky really wanted the stress relief of baking a billion batches of cookies, just because he could.

"How close is the suit to being done?" Bucky asked Tony over breakfast of what he hoped would be the last day.

Tony didn't answer right away, being polite enough to chew his food before speaking. "Almost done. Should be done this afternoon. We'll take tonight off and then leave early in the morning." He jabbed another bite of crepe onto his fork. "You're not impatient or anything, are you? Wanting to get away from the lovely Pepper's company?"

Bucky shook his head. "No. I just don't like leaving jobs hanging."

"Well, don't worry, this one's about to get off the swinging rope. Which reminds me, come downstairs with me once you're done eating. I want to get another look at your arm, make sure I didn't miss anything."

That sounded very much like something Bucky didn't want to do. "It's working fine."

"Of course it is," Tony said. "I was the one that worked on it. But you really don't want to chance that you'll have to retreat again because your mechanic was working with technology he wasn't familiar with. Not that you'll have to, but just for peace of mind." He eyed Steve. "His peace of mind, mostly, but, you know, just for everyone involved."

Bucky gave Steve a betrayed look. He damn well knew that Bucky didn't like his metal arm being messed with. All for his damn peace of mind. What about Bucky's peace of mind? He was going to steal Pepper's cayenne pepper from her cupboard and coat Steve's underwear with it. Jackass.

"Don't start," Steve said, not even looking away from his food. "You'd do the same if positions were reversed."

Bucky was not about to deny nor confirm that.

"So you two either have the best bromance in the world, or you developed telepathy because of your respective projects," Tony said. "Cap, you didn't even see that look."

"I didn't have to," Steve said. "I've been his best friend for over ninety years now."

"So no telepathy."

"Will someone define 'bromance' for me so I know whether I need to kick him or not?" Bucky asked.

Pepper decided to answer for Tony, allowing him to take the bite of food that was hanging on his fork. "It's a term used to describe two male friends that, under any other circumstance, could be seen as a romantic pair, but the affection is platonic. You two pretty much fit the definition."

Bucky looked at Steve, keeping a very flat expression. "So does this mean my jokes are completely appropriate?"

"Only if you follow through on getting me chocolates on my birthday," Steve said without missing a beat.

Tony stared at them, aghast. "And you don't want us joining you in these jokes when you throw out such great one-liners in front of us? You're both teases. I hope you drive each other crazy at night."

"Just on the odd occasion where there's only one bed and two of us," Bucky said, pretending that he didn't catch the joke. "He steals covers and says I kick in my sleep. Which is a lie."

That actually earned a pause from Steve, who set his fork down so he could stare at Bucky hard enough that he might drill a hole in his head. "Bucky. Every time I stayed the night at your house when we were kids, you'd send me home with bruises on my legs from your kicking. My mother thought you were abusing me until the first time you stayed at my place and she realized you were just a restless sleeper."

"And exactly how do you know I haven't outgrown that?" Bucky demanded. "You haven't been complaining about it since we got here."

"That's because the bed is so big, you'd have to kick like a mule to even reach me from your side of the bed."

"Oh good, the bed is big enough to avoid causing a divorce," Tony said. "I didn't want to be labeled as the responsible party for breaking up the greatest love story of the twentieth century." He finished off the last of his crepes. "Wonderful as always, Pepper, but I gotta get back to work." He pointed at Bucky. "You, my workshop, as soon as you're done with that fabulous breakfast that Pepper made for you."

Bucky motioned idly at him with his fork. "Go. I'll be down when I'm done savoring this."

Upon getting downstairs- after appropriate thanks to Pepper -Bucky immediately saw a problem. He didn't have the code to open the door to Tony's workshop. "So do you plan on checking my arm through the glass, or did you just forget I'd have to be able to open the door?" he asked Tony from the bottom of the stairwell.

Tony looked up from his computer. "Oh." He tapped away at a couple more buttons on the screen before getting up and opening the door for Bucky.

"'Oh', you say." Bucky resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he entered behind Tony. He looked around the workshop, taking in what he was in too much pain and too panicked to notice before. The geek was strong in that room, computers and mechanics married in what had to be the best work room that Bucky had ever had the pleasure of seeing. Even the office he worked in once upon a time wasn't this nice.

Leave it to a Stark.

As his gaze swept the room, he hesitated before where the chair was the other day. He was having too much fun trying to keep his mitts off the shiny toys in the room to want to go back to that part of his past.

But he couldn't help it. He wanted it gone, feared that it wasn't, worried that if it was still there that he'd get thrust back into the mindset of a weapon that was being 'fixed' because he wasn't working correctly.

"I got it put away," Tony said, as if he'd read Bucky's thoughts. Bucky barely had a chance to look at him sideways for it before Tony motioned towards where the chair used to be. "You were looking for it. Come on, you're sitting over here." He tilted his head forward to a bench next to his main computer display.

Bucky followed, though his gaze kept returning to that empty spot where that chair had been, like it might reappear, a nightmare ready to be relived.

"It's like a trainwreck, isn't it?" Tony said, pulling Bucky's attention back to him. "Can't look away from it, even though it's horrible." He pulled out a rolling chair out from under the work table with his foot. "Sit. With your back to that. Put your arm up on that table for me."

With one more glance to where the chair used to be, Bucky plopped himself down on the stool and put his arm up on the table. There was still a cold chill down his spine, having his back to that empty space. His words were snappish. "If you could work on my arm like this, why did we bother with that stupid thing to begin with?"

"Bruce's suggestion," Tony said, hopping up on the table and moving over to sit cross-legged by Bucky's arm. "After so many hours in pain, he figured it'd be best to put you in a chair that you could lean back in, give the rest of you a chance to take a break. We had no idea about the other chair. Something your not-boyfriend didn't warn us about."

"And what reason would he have for telling you?" Bucky asked, watching as Tony grabbed a tool and started poking around in the area of the injury.

"None," Tony said in a very matter-of-fact tone. "I was just observing. I do that a lot. Observe, that is. It's good to keep an eye on your surroundings and what's going on." He made a thoughtful noise, tapping the computer in Bucky's arm that he was working on. "Looks in one piece to me. It's functioning fine?"

"Yes. I told you that upstairs."

"And Cap wanted me to double-check it. If there wasn't something else I've been asked to do, I would've told him he was insulting me. The wires look good, too."

Something else he'd been asked to do? Bucky almost yanked his arm away in wary suspicion, but years of conditioning to sit as still as possible when his arm was being worked on kept him from moving. The best he could do in response was to give Tony a look to remind him how dangerous it could be to mess with a weapon that always had a finger on its trigger.

"This metal is fantastic," Tony said, not appearing bothered by Bucky's death stare. "Wish I knew where Hydra got their hands on it and if there's more. I wouldn't mind a suit made out of it. And keeping it out of bad guys' hands, also a good thing." He set his tools aside. "Looks good to me. Clean bill of mechanical health from the world's greatest mechanic-slash-engineer. Now." He sat up straighter, almost leaning backwards on the table. "My other agenda. Or one of them."

"Looking at my arm wasn't even one to begin with, was it?"

"No, no, I was genuinely asked to do that." Tony pointed off to Bucky's right. "Second agenda. Show off the suit."

Bucky looked over just as a light switched on by the far wall, illuminating a stretch of glass panels across the length of the wall that Bucky hadn't seen before. Behind one of the panels was the iconic red and gold Iron Man suit. The other panels had other suits in various stages of creation.

Tony hopped down off the table. "JARVIS, pull it out. I have a sales pitch to give." He passed Bucky on the way to the suit. The glass panel raised, and the suit stepped out on its own. "What do you think?" Tony sounded like the proud parent of kid graduating from Yale.

Bucky walked around the suit, admiring the smooth construction, the various small pieces of metal and how they fit together to maximize movement efficiency, the articulation of the joints. "I think I'm glad that Hydra never came up with this," he said. "I've seen some of the news reels from New York. It's a fantastic piece of machinery."

"A modern marvel, if I do say so myself," Tony agreed. "This one's updated from the one you saw. She runs a bit better, she's got better weapons, all sorts of new toys. The repulsors have a stronger output, means she goes faster, means she's very efficient at frying the bad guys. You should appreciate that, this thing's going to be covering your ass in Kiev if there's still trouble there."

"I appreciate any back up we get, if it keeps Steve safe," Bucky said, stopping to study one of the shoulder joints. "I see why you'd want to build one of these out of the stuff my arm is made of. You could make joints that don't have to have metal shifting over metal. Keep the inside stuff safer."

"Kinda what I thought," Tony said. He went silent for a few seconds, giving Bucky more time to investigate the suit, before speaking up again. "And since you gave the wonderful segue, speaking of Cap, I have a third agenda, and no, you're not getting out of being subjected to it."

Bucky stopped, his flesh hand on the shoulder joint of the suit dropping to his side in a slow, hesitant manner. He took in a deep breath, bracing himself for whatever stupid thing Steve was having Tony do. "What'd he put you up to?"

"Getting you to talk." Tony turned back towards the workbench where the computer he'd been fiddling with when Bucky got downstairs was. He acted like he assumed Bucky would follow.

Bucky almost didn't. He already knew what was going to be said, and he already didn't like it. But he followed anyway. Tony said he wasn't avoiding this one, and he was probably right. If Bucky didn't listen to him, Steve might try to get creative, and that was a headache Bucky wasn't in the mood for.

"I see you clammed up," Tony said as he seated himself at the computer. "Good. Because all you have to do right now is listen."

"I promise nothing."

"Try anyway."

Bucky answered him with a silence that was as close as Tony was going to get for the moment.

Tony stared at his computer like he was reading something, abruptly ignoring the lecture he was supposed to give Bucky. "JARVIS, check the download, looks like something's glitching." He looked up at Bucky. "I'm gonna be straight up honest. I've been recruited to try to cut the stitches keeping your mouth shut. Cap's worried about you. He wants to help. I know what it's like. Wanna guess how I know?" Tony didn't actually give him any time to not care enough to guess before he continued on. "Because I've been in his shoes. Little known fact, Pepper was also subjected to experiments."

"Has everyone here been part of an experiment?" Bucky demanded, feeling an unhappy drop in his stomach. The club membership kept gaining unlikely names.

"Not everyone, but she was," Tony said. "Old acquaintance of ours developed a serum called the Extremis. Tapped into an empty spot in the brain that controlled healing. But the stuff was unstable. People who were injected with it didn't tend to last long. Sure, they regrew limbs within seconds, but the Extremis burned too hot, caused them to explode into bitty pieces of burning flesh all over the place. Not pleasant."

Bucky looked away, towards the stairs, as if Pepper might materialize and assure Bucky that Tony was exaggerating. What the fuck was it with all the human experimentation happening within his primary and secondary social circle? It was like that little club wanted to stick close to home.

Before continuing, Tony gave another glance at the screen. "Twenty percent. Hm. Definitely slow." A few taps on the screen and then he looked back at Bucky. "Don't worry, she's not in danger anymore. I'm better than the guy who designed that stuff, I stabilized it. She won't burn."

Something very specific stuck out to Bucky in that statement. "Stabilized?"

Tony sat back in his seat, hands folded behind his head. "Stabilized." He seemed firm on not saying anything else on the subject. "I'm not prying into you, don't pry into Pepper. I'm not trying to get you to talk to me, the goal here is for you to talk to Steve. All I'm doing is the convincing."

"What you're doing is storytelling," Bucky said. He wanted Tony to get to the damn point that he knew was being made so he could go back upstairs and pretend the conversation never happened.

"For a reason," Tony replied. "Something else of interest to you. We were up on top of the rigging of an old oil tanker. The piece of rigging she was on was breaking, I told her to jump, I'd catch her." He looked back at the computer, and Bucky had a feeling that he was trying to push out his words, like he still had trouble with what he was about to say.

When he continued, his tone was flat. "I didn't catch her. She fell. Probably died. If it hadn't been for the Extremis, she wouldn't be here now."

Those words could've come right out of Steve's mouth. He could see why Tony was asked to do this. Tony knew Steve's position. But Tony wasn't trying to convince him of anything Steve hadn't already, and if Steve couldn't succeed, why the hell did Tony think he could?

"I know what you're trying to do-"

Tony cut him off. "Not entirely. Yeah, okay, you know that I'm trying to convince you that being in Cap's position hurts like a bitch. You weren't the only one hurt in that fall. But I also get how hard it can be to talk about being tortured. I never went through even half of what you did, I don't think anyone ever has or will. But when I was taken hostage by a terrorist group over weapons my company made, they... convinced me to help them. I was smart enough to get away without them realizing what I was doing. But lemme tell ya, that kind of convincing isn't pleasant. And I think that's the side you can relate to."

"All I'm getting is that if there's a god, he hates you."

Tony tilted his head in a half-assed shrug. "Probably. But if he's out there, he hasn't been nice to you or Cap, either. But that's not my point. My point is, I understand where you're coming from, too. I got this nice, happy little unique perspective that made me a better choice for this. Talk to him. Believe it or not, it helps. And it'll make him handle _his_ side of the mess that is you two if he can help you, even if all he can do is listen. Do it for his sake, if not your own."

Bucky looked down at the ground, his metal index finger tapping nervously on his thigh. "I already told him I'm trying," he said, voice sounding smaller than he'd intended it to. His stomach was not happy with breakfast at that point, had tied itself into tiny knots with each word out of Tony's mouth. He wasn't trapped, he knew he could leave the workshop and go back upstairs and hide in his room with the tablet that had been rescued from their quinjet to read for until breakfast was no longer doing a die-in in his stomach. Steve would leave him alone, at least for a little while.

But simply packing up and leaving the uncomfortable conversation behind was easier thought than done. The mere act of simply walking away added a bowling ball to those knots in his stomach, reminding him that The Mechanic had yet to dismiss him, he was still getting new mission objectives. The Soldier was expected to comply and give no protest until he was released. He wasn't even sure what sort of mission his brain was trying to hide behind anymore, but the conditioning ran too deep. He could leave, but he couldn't. Not yet.

"Try harder." The Mechanic- Tony, _Tony_ -held up a hand. "Before you get mad, keep listening. Try harder. You need to push yourself to try harder. You don't want Hydra to have that level of control over you, do you? You don't want them in your head like that anymore, right?"

Those questions made his mind recoil like he'd been struck, and everything inside freeze. He'd never thought of it that way, but he realized once the words were out that Tony was right. His right hand began to shake, just a bit, and Hydra was right there, taking control of his nerves through years of reset processes to stop the shaking, to show no weakness. Not in front of Tony, or anyone, really, but Tony specifically had already seen too much of the Soldier/Bucky/Whoever's weaknesses, he didn't need to see more.

Tony took his lack of response in stride. "And that right there is why you need to talk to Cap. Silence seems like a great defense at first, but it'll bite you in the ass. I know you probably don't consider me a friend yet, we haven't had a lot of chance to talk, but call this a statement from someone who thinks you're his friend. Don't destroy yourself."

Bucky found something in Tony's words to latch onto, to avoid the subject in a way that didn't leave him hiding behind the Winter Soldier. "You consider a near-stranger your friend?"

"I like making friends," Tony said. "Make up for lost time. I was out of the age range of my classmates all my life, hard to make friends in that situation. Cap and I have our differences in opinion, but you know, he's a good friend. I figure that anyone that he trusted his life to as much as he does you couldn't be a bad person to have as a friend. And calendar age aside, we're in age range of each other." He squinted. "I think. How old were you when they got you?"

"Twenty-eight."

Tony's face screwed up into one of extreme displeasure. "Okay, so I'm sixteen years your senior. I miss being the twenty-something CEO who ruled the world."

"Aren't you still the CEO that rules the world?"

"Nope." Tony glanced back to his computer for a few heartbeats, before turning his attention back to Bucky. "I'm not CEO anymore. Still my company, but I passed the title to Pepper. Frees me up to play with my own projects."

Bucky looked around the room, trying to see if he could identify any projects, see if his college education was still useful, or if it had become as hopelessly dated as his approach with women.

Okay, he hadn't tried with women yet, but it was probably pretty bad at this point.

If Tony noticed Bucky's curiosity, he let it slide, and simply fluttered his hand in the direction of the Iron Man suit and the other half-finished versions. "For awhile, those were my only toys. Kinda had some anxiety after New York. The fight in the city didn't bother me, I've done things like that in the past, but going up that portal made me decide I needed a lot of security blankets."

Then a rueful smile crossed his lips, like laughing at a joke that wasn't funny. "Believe me, you're not the only one around here that has issues. Which leads me back to one more mention of your zipped lips and Steve. Remember, he watched you fall. He thought you died. He blamed himself. Not trying to guilt you, but I think you owe it to him to at least explain why you have certain tics. Just think about it."

Bucky glanced towards the door, not liking the blindsiding of the return to that topic, and hoping that Steve would come down and save him before the reset processes took his brain again. But Tony was speaking in good faith, and Steve wasn't likely coming down anyway. So he looked back at Tony with a tired sort of surrender. "If I say you're my friend, will you stop bringing that up?"

That got a shit-eating grin out of Tony. "Well, I'll take the friendship and sure, I'll drop it for the moment. Can't promise I won't again if I think I need to, but you've been nice and cooperative, I'll give you a chance to digest all that before Cap and I decide you need another intervention."

Not quite what Bucky was hoping for, but for the moment, he'd take it. "As long as nobody tries to put me into therapy."

"Fair enough." Tony shrugged. "Therapy might not necessarily work anyway. Everyone's different. Pepper saw a proper therapist. I mostly annoyed Bruce, despite his protests that psychiatry wasn't his field. Maybe all you need is to talk to Cap. Or occasionally Pepper or I. But if it makes you feel at all better, head doctors are a lot better than they were in your day. You had lobotomies back then, didn't you?"

"They don't anymore?" Bucky hadn't exactly educated himself on modern psychiatry practices. In fact, he'd pointedly avoided finding anything out about that area of study, lest Steve start thinking anything therein would be good for him.

"Nope. Those went out of style with the invention of anti-psychotics. Don't remember when that happened, that's not something I regularly read about. But as far as I know, we don't stick ice picks into people's skulls anymore. Just some medicines that probably wouldn't work on you, and talk therapy. And there endeth the lesson. Now go back upstairs and tolerate our daily routine. I have some computer bugs to work out." He looked at the suit. "Her computer system is new. I rewrote the original program I was working with when I decimated the thousands I'd built up before. Got a few kinks I'm working out before we hit the skies."

Good, new subject and a dismissal. "I'm not going to be the one that causes your suit to malfunction in the Ukraine because I distracted you from your work."

"It'd be a nice return of the favor of not causing a divorce between you two weird old men."

Bucky snorted. "Divorce? He still hasn't proposed."

Tony looked at him in mocking shock. "That jerk."

Okay, so maybe having Tony as a friend wouldn't be so bad. Bucky grinned "Keep calling him names, he deserves it. I'll go call him a few for you while you work."

"And already, you're a great friend. Make sure to tell him I disapprove of him not making an honest man out of you."

"I'll pass that along," Bucky said on his way out the door.

Pepper and Steve were in the living room, where they'd been spending pretty much all their time the last few days while Tony worked. That put them between the stairs to the basement and the guest room. Both looked up when he emerged from Tony's private playground. "Just so you know, Steve, Tony doesn't approve of you not making an honest man out of me," he said without even pausing as he passed by.

Behind him, Steve made an indignant protest. Pepper just laughed.

While Bucky had a feeling that Steve would be chasing him down eventually, he was left unmolested to return to the bedroom. He kicked off his boots before sitting on the bed and fussing with his pillow until it would provide decent support for him to lean back on it and read on the tablet.

His attempt at reading didn't last long. As entertaining as _The Hunger Games_ was, his mind wouldn't stay focused. It was too full of Tony's words and memories he didn't want that had been dredged up as a result of the entire damn week. He switched to trying to catch up on several decades' worth of television pop culture.

Just like with the book, _Once Upon A Time_ wasn't doing anything to tune out his thoughts, either.

Ignoring his neck's protest to the unnatural angle, Bucky thunked his head back onto the wall behind him. Tony's little sermon earlier into all about the grip Hydra still held over Bucky made sense. He could feel the sense to it, the logic off it.

Reason dictated that it would be smarter and less troublesome in the long run if he'd just talk to Steve about things. For both their sakes. But reason in the mind didn't matter much when that cold, frozen knot somewhere between his heart and his gut argued with it. Every time he opened his mouth to practice finding the words he needed, that knot moved up until it blocked his throat. The feelings were there, the desire maybe not so much, but even trying despite that, the words failed to appear.

It wasn't as though he could pick up Steve and cram him inside his brain and go 'see? This is the problem'. No, that would be too easy. So he had to figure out how to word whatever it was that Steve wanted him to say, and those words were behaving about as well as a toddler with an attitude problem.

He couldn't wait for the next day, when they'd be back on the field and leveling the Hydra base in Kiev. Everyone thought talking would help, but there was nothing more therapeutic that he could think of than blowing up the lab he was experimented on in. If he had a choice, he'd make like the internet and take off and nuke the site from orbit. But Steve told him they couldn't do anything that'd harm the rest of the city.

Damn.

Speaking of the mission and being stuck in the 'hurry up and wait' phase that he hated with a passion, he did have one last thing he could try to keep his attention. If it failed, then he'd give up and either join Steve and Pepper, or try to nap. He sat up, dropping the tablet unceremoniously onto the bed in front of him. After changing programs, he pulled out the 3-D imaging that Tony had built in for them when Steve first asked for the favor.

The image before him was the Hydra base they were after. There were a few missing places inside it that Bucky was still trying to piece together. His time there wasn't brief, but he hadn't been allowed to go wandering to get a feel for the place. He was relying a lot on the programming they'd stuck in his head to know where all the safehouses and bases were and how to navigate them in case of an emergency.

Three seconds after the doorknob turned, startling a year off Bucky's life span, Steve poked his head in before fully entering. "Hey. I thought you'd be sleeping or something."

Bucky shook his head. "No. Just preparing for tomorrow."

Steve closed the door behind him, then joined Bucky on the bed, scooting over to sit more in the middle. He studied the image the tablet had produced. "Still missing some pieces?"

"Yeah." He knew that wasn't what Steve really wanted to talk about, but Bucky wasn't going to say that. "I'm having trouble remembering what that place looked like. There were a lot of areas they felt I didn't need to know about."

Steve reached over and turned the image to where he could see better. "Those stairs go to nowhere."

"No, that's the area I don't know." Rather, he didn't know what it looked like, but he knew that was where the experiments were conducted. There was probably a lot down there that Bucky wasn't eager to go traipsing around.

Steve let go of the image, letting Bucky turn it back to himself to keep working. "If there's more down there, then that might be a good first spot to place some explosives."

Bucky made a noise of agreement. He was getting a bit fidgety, waiting for Steve to say something about what was really on his mind instead of humoring Bucky's avoidance.

Oh for god's sake, just say it already.

"We'll show this to Tony tonight, let him get a look at it before we head out tomorrow."

Damnit, Steve.

Bucky dismissed the top floor, the part that was above ground, showing him the first basement that he knew. Down from there was the missing floor. Deciding that Steve wasn't going to say what he was thinking just yet, he started trying to fix the hallways that tapered off into a blank spot.

At the continued silence from Steve, who seemed content to just let Bucky stew in his own juices, he gave up. He'd been good at out-silencing Steve in the past, but Tony's little talk had crawled under his skin enough that he wanted to start scratching the words out like a parasite just under the surface. "Tony talked to me."

"I figured. You were down there awhile."

Bucky looked over at him, trying not to look as angry as he felt. "That has absolutely nothing to do with how you knew he did. You put him up to it."

Steve looked apologetic, though not enough for Bucky's tastes. "I'm getting desperate, Bucky. You won't let me help you. I thought maybe someone else could."

Bucky knew that. His fried brain didn't care. "Lecturing me doesn't help, it's just manipulative. You should know not to do that to me."

Steve took a deep breath, defensive. "So what am I supposed to do? I. Want. To. Help. You."

"Pray."

"I already do, and it doesn't seem to be working."

"Then keep waiting."

"How long?" Steve asked. "Until you've internalized everything so much that there's no chance of separating you from them?"

Bucky's right hand squeezed the image from the tablet into a twisted pretzel that dissipated at the aggressive grip. "Quit saying that. I am not theirs."

Liar.

He shoved the tablet aside so he could turn to face Steve better. "But fine, since you seem to be so interested in what goes on in my head, ask something. Stop just expecting me to start a conversation about the Winter Soldier Project. I don't even know why you feel you need to, you already know everything from the files." That was unfair and he knew it. He didn't care.

Steve didn't look impressed by Bucky's anger. He had the patience of a saint when Bucky had an episode, but when Bucky got hostile about it, Steve had that patience stretched thin. Bucky didn't blame him, even Steve had limits to his temper. "I don't want to start questioning you like this is an interrogation. I want you to tell me what's wrong _when something's bothering you_. I can't help you when I don't know what I'm working with."

"Like now?" Bucky demanded. "What's bothering me now is that we're having this stupid conversation. I don't want to talk about this."

"You never do," Steve said after taking a deep breath. "That's the problem. They hurt you and you're not letting me help make it not hurt as much. Talk to me. _Please."_

Bucky flinched. That tone sounded like Steve was on the verge of begging, if he wasn't already. Bucky didn't like it, it made him feel guilty and kicked up his older brother instincts to try to make everything better for a younger sibling.

But twenty-four years of being an older brother couldn't compare to decades of regular abuse. Thaw, reset, handed a gun, sent to pull the trigger, wiped, back into the cryo unit. Trying to describe that cycle that had become his life left him wanting to go hide in a corner until the terror went away, or at least abated enough for him to try to be a human rather than a weapon.

And Steve's insistence on pulling those feelings and the darkness into words that he couldn't articulate was really getting frustrating. Recruiting a near-stranger to help wasn't on his side, either.

"What am I supposed to say?" Bucky snapped, not meaning to throw verbal swords at him, but he could only take so much prodding of the bull. "Steve, I don't even know how to get words from my head to my mouth. I only sometimes think in words, how the hell am I supposed to translate what I'm thinking into something you'd understand?"

"You just did."

There was a squeal of tires in his head as those words hit him like a Buick around a tree trunk. His brain took a second to unwind that to realize he _had_ just said something more than he had been previously. He looked away from Steve, stared at the tablet. "Please don't make me go back there."

Those were words that came readily.

Steve reached over and pulled the image back from the tablet. "You sure you can go back there?" he asked, twisting the image around to show off the blank spot in the second level basement. "I saw how you reacted to the chair. What're you going to do when we get to this place?"

"Blow it to hell," Bucky answered as if that should've been obvious. "I want to make sure nobody can use whatever's in there to make another Winter Soldier. I don't want somebody else to become like me. I know I'm fucked up, nobody else should have to go through this."

For a moment, it seemed like Steve didn't know how to react to that, before he sighed and put his hand on Bucky's right shoulder. "I don't think you're as messed up as you think. And if you are, you're not beyond hope of fixing that."

Bucky looked own at the tablet and that terrible empty level. "That doesn't mean anyone else should have to do this."

"No," Steve agreed. "And preventing another Winter Soldier is a good thing. I don't think anyone would argue with you on that. I don't. But that doesn't mean the one that exists can't get his life back. I know you'll never be the same Bucky I remember growing up with. You already got changed by the war. So did I. You're not alone in this." Bucky looked at him just in time to see a small smile. "And don't look now, but you just talked about something that was upsetting you."

Bucky stared at his weapon hand. "Don't act like it was easy." It hadn't been, and it hadn't gotten anywhere near what was really sticking in his brain. He was scared of it. Scared of it still existing, like something that could reach out and grab him and drag him back into its hell. Preventing it from being used against someone else was secondary.

"I know it wasn't," Steve said. "But you did it. This is all I want. You talking. Me listening. Being a shoulder to lean on. It may not seem like much, but it does help."

Bucky side-eyed Steve. "It doesn't just help me, does it? Be honest."

"You're not wrong." Steve didn't look one bit ashamed for that. "I didn't catch you. I should've. If I had, Hydra never would've been able to do this to you."

Bucky closed his eyes, turning his head away so he wouldn't have to look at Steve when he opened them again. "You can't blame yourself for that, Steve. I'm the one that got my dumb ass blown out of the side of the train car."

"If it's not my fault, it's not yours either," Steve said, voice firm. "I didn't get to you in time. I couldn't help you," there was a brief pause, "and it seems that I can't now." Steve sounded like he might've been fighting off tears, the frustrated tremor in his voice familiar to Bucky. "I feel helpless. I don't know how to help the person that means the most to me in the world, and it-" He cut himself off, exhaling in a sharp burst of air. Bucky glanced at him, watching him close his eyes and swallow tightly. "It hurts. It hurts deep."

The tablet suddenly seemed very interesting and he wanted to go back to the conversation before he pointed out the giant white elephant that was tap dancing around the room. "I don't mean to hurt you. You know that."

Steve pulled him into a half hug, as if that might make everything better. It didn't, but the contact was nice. "I know." What he didn't say was that it hurt all the same. Bucky could hear that unspoken part, and it made his stomach do flip flops around his other internal organs.

"Anything I say is going to hurt you, you know."

"Yeah, but it'd help you. I can always go destroy a few punching bags if it upsets me that much. They're not a bad substitute for Hydra agents that I can't get at anymore."

Bucky tilted his head back onto Steve's arm. "A corner in the bathroom works better. And yes, I know you know about that."

"It'd be hard not to," Steve said. Then he pointed at the tablet. "Why don't you get back to work on that? I've harassed you enough right now."

Relieved, Bucky's shoulder muscles relaxed, tension draining out of him. He hadn't realized just how worked up he'd been, how tiring that whole conversation had been. "Go harass Pepper then. I'll be okay."

Steve patted his far shoulder before letting go. "I actually believe that this time. You're free to come join us when you're ready."

"I will."

Steve got up off the bed, and it was a small mercy that he didn't say anything else, just walked out and left Bucky to his thoughts.

Bucky decided he really didn't want to think anymore, not about his own life and the mess it was creating, so he forced his brain to immerse itself in someone else's problems.

Back to the Hunger Games.

Katniss was in a situation with a lot of issues that had no easy solutions. The hero of these stories never did. But there was one problem that could be easily fixed, and it was starting to annoy him. "Would you kiss him already? You're only marginally less irritating than Steve," he grumbled aloud. A few more paragraphs of getting lost in another world, and he was rewarded with a bit of satisfaction when she listened to him- why did characters even bother not to? -even if it was only supposed to be a show for the game cameras.

"'Bout goddamn time."

It felt nice to not have to keep his mouth shut when reading. The first time he bitched out loud, Steve gave him a side-long look (he didn't know why, Bucky had always expressed strong opinions about books). But he was alone now, goddamnit, and he'd bitch at Katniss to kiss Peeta all he wanted while he had the opportunity.

But really, it was about goddamn time.


	5. Blood Makes Noise

Pepper actually packed them bagged lunches for the trip. Or rather, a cooler with food and drinks. But they'd gotten sent off with it and a 'have fun storming the castle!' that sounded like a quote from something that Bucky hadn't caught up on yet, rather than something that just popped into her brain.

His new friends were weird.

"Was this really necessary?" Bucky asked, watching Steve and Tony lug the cooler that was too awkward for one person to carry into the quinjet. Bucky himself was carrying Tony's 'suitcase' with the Iron Man suit tucked into pieces inside. It was far heavier than the food that Pepper had lovingly packed for them, and it was either Bucky or Steve carry it, or Tony would have to walk around wearing the suit and potentially run out its power prematurely.

"What, the food?" Tony helped Steve maneuver the cooler into a corner where it wouldn't go flying. "It's a sixteen hour round trip at best. That's a long time to go without food, and normal in-flight snacks are terrible. Don't tell me you two went that entire time without food." When he received nothing but an uncomfortable silence in return, he looked between them in disbelief. "What, do you eat extra big meals before going out on long missions or something? I've seen how you eat, I don't know how your hyperactive metabolisms could let you get away with that."

Bucky set the suit aside in another corner, near the explosives they planned on using to blow the Hydra base to hell. He hoped Tony had no problem with that. "Our bodies can handle a lot more punishment than normal people."

Steve dropped himself into the pilot's seat, and started the pre-flight checks. "You should see the amount of food we go through after a mission," he told Tony without pausing what he was doing. "We just accept that we'll empty the cupboards enough to warrant a trip to the grocery store the next day."

"I don't want to see your food bills," Tony said, propping his elbow on the back of Steve's seat, just over his shoulder. He only moved to let Bucky get through to take the copilot's seat before resting his other elbow on the back of Bucky's seat.

"Neither do I," Bucky said. "Steve won't show me."

"Still getting used to inflation?"

Bucky glanced back up at him. "Getting there."

"You were a college boy, weren't you?" Tony asked. "Pepper's told me you were a smart guy, worked your way through uni and everything."

Bucky had just started to assist Steve with the pre-flight checks when that question made him pause. "I went to college, yeah. What does that have to do with anything?"

"You're kinda slow on the uptake if you still haven't done the math to adjust to modern day prices," Tony said. "Wouldn't expect that of a guy smart enough to get into MIT. What'd you study there, anyway?"

There was a question he didn't want to answer. It'd lead to Howard and he still wasn't ready to even do more than think the man's name. While it might get Steve to tell the goddamn truth, he wasn't fond of the idea of Tony finding out he had helped his father's murderer with his arm, housed him for a few days, then volunteered to go into combat with him, all in an enclosed flying machine. It'd have to wait.

Not something that made Bucky feel warm and fuzzy inside, but what was, was. Steve promised he'd deal with it, and Steve didn't make promises he wouldn't keep.

Speaking of the lie by omission that was haunting Bucky's conscience- he actually had one still left? halle-fucking-lujah -here'd have to come another one, just to avoid the first lie by omission. "It's been awhile. I know I graduated in '39, but..." He shrugged. "You heard Steve. They fried my brain cells. There's stuff missing."

Not technically a lie, but not exactly the truth, either.

Tony didn't make any verbal acknowledgement, sniffing once, something Bucky had noticed he did sometimes when contemplating something to say in a way that was best thought through before it made a trip from the brain to the mouth. "You know, I'm sure you have all sorts of hatred against the medical profession, having had experiments done on you and all, but you might want to consider having Bruce do a scan of your brain to look for permanent damage. You don't act like there is, but if the mindwipes were calibrated to only affect your memory, you might need more help than just time to get everything back."

Bucky frowned. That had gone somewhere even unhappier than before in a helluva hurry. "It'll heal. It always does."

"This has happened before?" Tony sounded surprised by that.

Steve decided to answer that, much to Bucky's great relief. "The project file mentioned neural scarring from the wipes. The scientists seemed perpetually confused by the fact that it was healing itself, when that shouldn't be possible. It'll just take time. Things will come back."

Steve was full of the better part of valor by not throwing out the probably obvious 'after he remembers, he'll need awhile to work through the anxiety the memories cause.' Tony knew enough about Bucky's 'issues', it didn't need to be brought back up. Tony was a smart man, he could figure it out.

"You have a copy of these files?"

"At home," Steve answered. "Go sit down, buckle in. Pre-flight's done."

"You're the boss, Cap." Tony went back to a seat, just behind Steve and only in Bucky's view if he turned his head a bit. "Buckled in and ready to go."

For a few minutes, there were no sounds except the jet's engines, with the occasional communication between pilot and copilot, and the tower. Once they were securely in the air and stable on their way to Kiev, Tony unbuckled and took his former place just behind Steve and Bucky. "So I have a question."

Bucky looked up at him. "As long as it's not a stupid one."

"No, I think this one is rather brilliant, actually," Tony replied. "Those files. They have anything to do with why you're going after a Hydra base you're mostly certain is abandoned?"

Brilliant question, yes. One Bucky wanted to answer, no.

"Natasha got that file from there," Steve said. "Had to call in a few favors to get it. Which means anything else there has probably already been cleared out, but we want to make sure there's nothing there that could come back to hurt Bucky, or replicate the experiment. We really don't need Hydra creating another brainwashed super soldier. They probably have enough other experiments wandering around, that number does not need to be expanded on."

"I can get behind that," Tony said, "What're we doing after we've cleared the place?"

"Blowing it up," Bucky said in a bland tone, as if blowing up buildings was just part of every day life Not quite every day, but quite a bit in his line of work.

Tony apparently picked up on that. "Well, you're certainly nonchalant about that. Do you do that to every Hydra base you two have gone after?"

Bucky decided that in the name of allowing Steve to focus on flying, he'd try to hold the conversation that Tony seemed to want. "Wouldn't you? That's what we did in the war, there's no reason not to now. It's not like we're not careful about civilian casualties."

"Do they happen anyway?"

Why the hell was Tony asking that? Why did he want tough subjects? He was going to be the sort of friend that Bucky wanted to strangle on a regular basis.

The tiptapping of his finger on the console was the only answer he could give for a moment while his brain tried to translate the feelings and images in his head into words that would be coherent. "It's come close a few times."

Which was really all he wanted to say on the subject.

"Sounds like a subject that needs to be dropped," Tony said. Quite wise of him.

"Good observation." Bucky looked over at Steve, hoping that for just a few minutes, he could hand over the controls and deal with Tony for awhile so that Bucky didn't have to.

Steve picked up on the silent request after glancing at Bucky for about three seconds. They'd worked together so much that it wasn't hard for Steve to read a request in Bucky's expression. "Here, take the controls," he told Bucky. "I'm getting a drink. Tony, you want one?"

Nice save, Steve.

At Tony's suggestion, and Steve's agreement, they spent the next sixteen hours rotating positions in the cockpit, copilot moving to pilot, then to the back for a little food and a chance to get a bit of sleep. Bucky had already shoved himself into mission mode, so he didn't eat, only drank a little, and didn't nap as much as went back to the tablet to continue filling in holes.

The first floor was laid out in such a way that it looked more like he'd been designing it based on seeing something on a map and trying to replicate it, instead of something from actual memory.

The first basement level was from memory, and it showed. Even though the image was nothing more than a diagram, the peculiarities of the halls, some slight curves, sharp turns versus gentle corners all looked organic. Something from a memory.

The bottom level remained a mystery. He had a feeling he might recognize the place once he was there, or at least, he hoped he would. It'd make things easier than wandering aimlessly.

As they got close to their landing point, Tony took his turn in back, clicking the lock on the suit's suitcase with his foot. The suit sprang to life, wrapping itself around him, almost but not quite fluid, the metal pieces sliding around and clicking together once they were in place. It was a fantastic process to watch, and Bucky was intensely curious about how it worked, wanted to get his fingers into the inner machinery and play.

"Okay, we're here, nobody's distracted by flying," Tony said once they had landed on the rooftop of an abandoned hospital. "Let's see the schematic again, go over our play, see if we can find any holes that need plugging before we finalize it."

Bucky pulled up the image on the tablet. "This is the Hydra base. It's an old warehouse located in an industrial sector near the northern end of town. Held medical supplies for local hospitals. All Hydra-run. Nobody thought anything of weird medical machines or a lot of pharmaceuticals coming and going."

"Perfect place to perform human experiments," Tony said, which he really didn't have to.

"Mostly to test medicines. Everyone that came through were just lab rats, and any that survived the medicinal testing were killed and autopsied to find what had gone right to replicate it later on Hydra soldiers that needed the medical intervention. Zola had a special place in his black heart for me. I was the only one that they went all out on. At least, the only one that survived more intensive treatment."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "You sure about that?"

"As sure as I can be without talking to all seven billion people on the planet," Bucky said.

"That's gonna have to be good enough. JARVIS, you scanning this?"

"Yes, sir," JARVIS said, and Bucky found it slightly odd to hear two different voices from the same 'body'. "First floor layout is downloaded into my memory banks."

"Good," Tony said. "Let's get that basement."

Bucky knocked aside the top floor. "There's two basements," Bucky said. "The first one's set up like a training grounds. I wasn't the only one to use it, but the Winter Soldier project dominated the area."

Tony made a thoughtful noise, tilting his head slightly. "Where do those stairs go?"

An inevitable question that Bucky knew he had to answer. They were on the Mission now, and a full briefing for all involved parties was necessary. "That's where the experiments were done. I don't remember the layout."

"You might remember when we get there," Tony said. "So where'd the separatists come in?"

"Halfway between here and there," Steve said. "The Hydra base is in a mostly abandoned area of that district. They probably already looted the first floor for anything useful, but they didn't stick around. Better strategic position in a slightly more active area; they could take hostages if necessary. We didn't know they were there."

"And this landing spot is the closest to the base?" Tony asked.

"By convenience, " Steve said. "We're in a radar blind spot. We just got lucky that there was room for the quinjet and we weren't far from the base."

Tony made a rude noise that managed to sound amused. "That seems like Avengers luck. Nice and close parking spot, bad guys between that nice spot and the store."

"Robbing Wal-Mart apparently wasn't exciting enough for them," Steve said.

"Is it ever?" Tony asked. "Okay, Cap, Bucky, this is your show, I'm the hired help. How do we approach this? Just run in and start blasting? Because that seems very normal for the team."

Steve switched the view of the Hydra base to a map of the industrial area. "We ran into them here-" he pointed at a spot on the map, which lit up with little dots that were so close together that they almost looked like one giant blur. "That's our closest estimate as to how many were there. Tony, take to the air, hit the guys on the roof. They had a lot of firepower up where we couldn't see it."

Bucky didn't like that idea. The rooftops were his territory; it let him play sniper, let him be Bucky Barnes. Getting down in the fray was necessary sometimes, but he really didn't want more mental regression into Hydra's Winter Soldier than he'd already had and was going to have with that stupid base.

But he couldn't argue the logic of it. Tony would be able to see up there better, and Bucky had already proven that in this fight, he might not be good enough for that position. Tony wouldn't be with them at all if Bucky hadn't been injured due to his own negligence.

So he kept his mouth shut and let Steve decide where to position him.

"You two don't plan on just charging in headfirst at the front line, do you?" Tony sounded like he did not approve of that plan.

Steve shook his head. "I am, but I want Bucky looping around behind them. Buck, look for wherever they're based. Go weed out the root, and feel free to plunder any weapons you find."

"You know I would anyway," Bucky said, feeing immensely relieved that he wasn't going to be put in a position to hunt. It wasn't a sniper's position, but it was a sound strategy for a soldier of his caliber. Acceptable compromise.

After Bucky took another few seconds to memorize where the line of fighters that they could track was so he could get around them with minimal effort, he set the tablet aside and held out his hand to Steve. "Earpiece."

"Please," Steve said, handing Bucky his comm. "Your manners are atrocious."

"I've earned the right to be an asshole," Bucky said, testing his comm's reception. Once certain that it wasn't going to malfunction on him, he pulled on his mask, slipping into habitual silence. Banter was gone, the only words that would come out of his mouth at that point would be necessary communication for the mission.

"JARVIS, wire in with them," Tony said. Steve and Bucky waited patiently until JARVIS confirmed the connection in their respective earpieces. He swept his arms out in grandiose fashion for Bucky to go first. "You're the one that's gotta go the farthest. After you."

Bucky ignored the flourish, barely even registered it, taking off at a dead run out the open cargo bay of the quinjet, onto the rooftop. A small hop onto the ledge of the roof, and then sailing across the street to the next building.

He'd have to go several blocks to get around the front line, but he was fast. If he miscalculated how far he'd have to go and ran into trouble, he knew Tony and Steve would be near and distract the frontline fighters from any damage Bucky had to do to get through.

The separatists were spread out in a rough half-mile radius from what they'd observed their first attempt at getting to the Hydra base. Half a mile from the quijet, heading west, signs of further personnel another half mile out from that. So Bucky had a minimum of a mile to go. That wasn't hard, just seventeen blocks. Rooftop hopping long distances was only difficult when the next building to jump on was several stories higher than the one he was currently on.

That just meant some wall scaling was in order.

He was thirteen blocks away when he heard the sounds of gunfire from somewhere behind him and to the right. Oh good, Tony and Steve had found their new friends. The distance away that noise came from told Bucky that he'd likely gone far enough south, and it was time to head west. That'd put him skirting the edges of the separatists' territory.

Traveling west, the streets below him were empty. The sounds of gunfire and yelling was loud to his right; Bucky started jaywalking across the rooftops to get as close as possible without tangling up with Steve and Tony. Explosions joined the sounds of bullets.

"This group was big enough to stop you two?" Tony demanded in Bucky's ear.

"There were a lot more when we got here," Steve replied.

Bucky caught a glimpse of Tony's Iron Man suit a few hundred yards away. Good, he hadn't gotten too close to the main fray.

"How many more?"

A lot.

"This is about a third of what was here when we arrived," Steve said.

"You two frighten me deeply."

Good. Be frightened.

A quick scout around the area farthest west from where he saw Tony revealed that the separatists must have gotten spooked by the appearance of two of the Avengers and sent the bulk of their defenses towards the obvious fighters.

Why was it that everyone forgot that Captain America had a shadow?

Idiots.

But if they were going to be idiots, be it far from him to correct their misconceptions. That meant staying stealthy, not being seen nor heard until it was too late. So his guns were ruled out for the time being.

But his knives were effective, and he didn't even need those to be deadly. There were three guards on a roof three buildings over from where Bucky had stopped. Since none of the other nearby buildings were even so much as patrolled, Bucky made a calculated assumption that he'd just found where their command forces were hiding.

The posted guards were watching the street level. More idiots. Bucky practically flew across the street from one building to theirs, his Yari IIs drawn. They were in motion before he landed, hitting the men on either side of him. Before the third could react, his Mark II was crossing the distance between them and sinking into the guard's skull to the hilt.

He really needed a projectile weapon that wasn't loud and wasn't bitty like his damn knives. One of these days, he was gonna lose them to his victim falling the wrong way and taking the knife with him.

Fortunate for him, none of his targets tumbled ass over teakettle off the roof. He collected his knives, pausing to clean each of them at least a bit before sheathing them. He took the roof access into the building.

The building the separatists had chosen to set up camp in was a cold storage building; there were thick pipes crisscrossing the ceiling, and industrial cooling fans hanging several feet over the floor.

And for some reason, they'd left the cold on. It was fucking October, who the hell left an industrial-strength AC on in October in the northern hemisphere?

Right. Russians.

The storage was gigantic; the main room alone looked roughly the size of a football field, and it was obvious from the corner that Bucky was perched in the entire front room was set up as their makeshift barrcks. Shelves full of large cargo crates separated the room into smaller sections. To the back of the room was what looked like an administrative wing. Or at least a small collection of offices.

There weren't many men in the barracks area; it almost looked like they'd put all of their manpower into fighting off Steve and Tony. Probably smart of them. It'd take a small army to fight off those two, a larger one if Bucky were with them.

He had to wonder again about their intelligence if they forgot about him in that equation. Maybe Steve and Tony were just making a big of enough fuss for the separatists to not notice that Captain America's usual play partner was missing.

Thanks guys. Makes the job easier.

The only way off the roof access to the ground was right out in view of everything. Which meant taking a more discreet route. There was a particularly large grouping of pipes that were frigid to the touch that he could reach if he jumped. They looked sturdy; as long as he didn't try to squeeze with his left hand, they'd hold.

He gave it fifteen seconds to make sure that he could get up there without being seen, then hopped, landing on the pipes with a quiet thunk.

Crawling forward was achingly slow, not wanting to make any sudden movements, sudden noises, to avoid detection. Below him, the room was almost empty. Almost. There were still an easy dozen, closer to two dozen. Compared to the size of the room and the forces already enaging Steve and Tony out in the streets, along with those Steve and Bucky had already taken out, the number of men down there seemed pitiful. If this was all they'd left behind to defend their own base, Bucky felt sorry for them. From his position, he could snipe every one of them without being caught.

The crates on the shelves that sectioned the room into smaller 'rooms' interested him. He really wanted to know what was in them. Likely clothes and other necessities you'd find in a barracks, but maybe also weapons, and that was an idea he could subscribe to.

Getting over the pipes without something on his uniform or his exposed metal fingers clanking off the metal was a bit of a chore. He managed to slink out about halfway into the middle of the room, and leaned over, listening to conversations.

"It's Captain America again," one man was saying and Bucky's mind automatically switched to Russian to understand them, although the man had an odd accent for being Russian. He might've been originally from somewhere else. Wherever he was from originally, he was now in the Ukraine, pacing around a cot, down one side, around the end of it, down the other side, then back again.

His fellow conversationist was sitting on the end of the cot getting circled like carrion. "I thought he stayed out of politics."

Rude snort. "He's an American, they can't keep their fingers out of anyone else's pie."

Weird fucking way to put that, but Bucky couldn't deny that allegation against his home country.

He was temporarily distracted by the conversation between Tony and Steve in his comm.

"Is everything in the military a dick joke?

"Pretty much."

"I'm looking at you in a whole new light, Cap."

Bucky had to pause where he was, trying to figure out what he missed that had brought that up. Helluva conversation to tune into.

Creak.

Wait. Creak?

Bucky turned his head slightly, looking at the pipes bending under his arms. Oh come on, what kind of industrial-strength steel alloy breaks just from the weight of a cybernetic super soldier? Sure, he could crush cars by landing on them, but cars are made of carbon fiber, they're _supposed_ to flatten like aluminum cans.

Creak.

Silence reigned in the room for another three seconds, the men below no longer talking before another creak.

Shit.

Creak.

Please don't.

The pipes busted right underneath him. He shot out a hand to catch hold of any non-falling piece of the pipes he could, too late realizing that using his metal hand was probably not a good idea to use when the piping crushed in his palm and busted off, sending him on his good way to the ground floor.

 _Dear Kiev. Fuck you and your shitty, inferior constructions._

At least the pipes didn't have any deadly coolant following him.

He landed squarely on a piece of piping that had beat him to the ground, sending him off his feet and onto his ass as it rolled out from under him. The pipe went skittering along the concrete floor with a rapid fire _taptaptaptap_ followed by a metallic groan as it came to a stop.

The two men he'd been eavesdropping on had rather suddenly been joined by every single person that he'd counted in the room. That was roughly two dozen. Quick count showed twenty-two. Close enough for government work.

Instead of introducing himself, he opted on starting the party with a game of dart toss. He kicked up a piece of the broken pipe, grabbing it with his metal hand and flung it at one of the two men he'd been listening in on. The pipe split his head, squarely between the eyes.

Men shouted, converging on him. He heard the sound of the click of guns being pulled from holsters and the safeties turned off. He flipped up to his feet, grabbed the second conversationist, pulling the man in front of him just as several shots fired in his direction. The bullets hit the human shield, then he flung the dead man's body at the closest armed man.

The distraction gave him a second to yank the bloodied piping from his first target's head. He brandished it like a bat, jumping in between two armed targets faster than their aims could follow. The Winter Soldier swung hard at the man to his left, hearing the shattering of bone as it connected with his face, then used his momentum to turn, servos in his arm whining as the pipe hit dead on into the second man's throat. His body jerked backwards, stopped and shoved back down onto his face by a kick to the small of the back.

Four down.

Gunfire again, narrowly missing him, and he was in motion, turning to his left, where two gunman had just managed to pull themselves out from the body shield that'd been thrown at them. He tossed the bloodied pipe into the air, pulled out his Yari IIs from their place on his lower back, and leapt onto their backs, driving the blades of his knives into the back of their necks, the kinetic force behind them shattering bone. He twisted, flinging one of the dirtied knives at another gunman. The pipe fell back into gripping range and he grabbed it out of the air, spinning and swinging it hard into the side of the face of another gunman.

Seven.

The targets wised up, backing out of melee range. That would not stop him. He was faster than any of them. Dodging bullets was tricky when they came from multiple directions, but the old standby of 'hard to hit a moving target' was in his favor.

He wanted his damn knife back.

Deciding the piping was only good for one more kill, he leapt at the nearest gunman, the pipe leaving his hands for a mere second as the Winter Soldier grabbed the gunman and yanked him in front of him. His hands caught the pipe and he pulled the pipe back against the gunman's neck with enough force to embed the pipe in his throat.

Eight.

"For the love of Christ, _shoot him_ ," one man yelled, hiding at the back of the group.

Shooting sounded good.

Momentarily leaving his knife in one target's chest, he grabbed his SIG-Sauer out of his left holster and took aim, squeezing off three shots, two for the closest targets, and one especially for the lazy one who seemed to think that he could tell the others to take on the Winter Soldier and not have to help.

Eleven. Eleven more to go.

His second knife found its way between someone's eyes. Twelve. Turn, use momentum to get down, grab the Intratec from the right thigh holster and aim. Fire off two shots from the Intratec. Fourteen. The SIG-Sauer took another two in tandem with the Intratec. Sixteen. Six more.

The Winter Soldier was forced to back away, taking a three sixty as bullets zipped by. He stopped at the head of one cot. He kicked it up into the air, then jumped, using both feet against the metal supports on either side to slam it into two of the last targets. It wasn't really a weapon, but it was an excellent distraction for him to fire off four more shots. The last two were trying to get out from under the cot.

He walked over and casually fired both the SIG-Sauer and the Intratec at their heads, the bullets flying true.

There. Twenty-two inconvenient targets down.

He hadn't heard any response from the back offices, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. But he at least had a minute or two to investigate the crates.

After retrieving his knives.

As he expected, there was a lot of supplies that would be useless to him, but there was a crate full of various explosives, small boxes of grenades of various types, boxes of ammunitions, all full of wonderful chemicals that would make a very nice big boom.

After searching it for something to put that ammo in and finding nothing, he dragged that crate out off the low shelf it was sitting on, and pushed it to the door leading to what he still assumed was the administrative offices until the large crate blocked up the door. He dug around in the box, grabbing a grenade with a slow delay between the pin and the explosion. He armed the grenade, tossed it in the box, and ran like hell in the opposite direction, out the door and across the street to hide behind another building.

Behind him, the explosion ripped through the ground floor, the pressure popping off the door, dust and smoke billowing out.

Target eliminated with a brutal efficiency. His blood screamed from the levels of adrenaline pumping through it, the dizzying high of having done his job, done it well. None of those men would ever interfere again.

As the Winter Soldier slowly came down and Bucky returned, his insides began to turn into a slushy goop. His stomach muscles began to tense and his right arm began to shake. He'd done it again. His mind had gone from simple fighting against armed men into a hunter, an assassin that left a trail of painful destruction behind him.

He sunk down to the ground, back against the building he'd taken refuge against, crossing his legs under him, his arms folded over his stomach. That was stupid of him. He'd lost control. He could've found shelter and fired from the safety of a trench made of shelving and crates. Instead, he'd destroyed, carved his name in blood.

He needed a minute. Just a minute. He still had work to do, the real mission hadn't even started yet. He didn't have time for an episode. He needed just a minute.

"Bucky, status?" Steve's voice came across his comm.

Not just a minute? Okay, fine. Fuck you too, world.

"Command base clear," he replied.

"If there are any left over here, none of them are coming out to play," Tony said. "Where's 'command base'? We'll meet you."

Bucky closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath. "A cold storage warehouse about a quarter mile away from the rear line."

"The area's clear," Steve said. "We'll rendezvous there."

"Acknowledged."

It took another fifteen very long seconds to make his muscles cooperate with the idea of standing. It took another thirty to breathe normally. And another five to shut away the fear of self and return to a neutral expression.

Purely out of a smart sense of paranoia, he remained where he was, a blind corner between him and anyone coming down the street. He waited until he could hear the sounds of metal joints making a slight but distinct clinking noise before glancing around the corner. Good, it was Tony and Steve.

"Okay, so, that was fun," Tony said as Bucky joined them. "You had so much fun that you got your uniform dirty."

Bucky looked down at himself. Getting up close and personal with his combat knives had left blood spattered here and there. "It happens." _It shouldn't._

Tony looked around the area. "Any other amusing distractions before we hunt down this Hydra base and see what damage we can do there?"

"Hopefully no," Steve said. "Bucky, your lead. You know where this place is."

Right. He just needed to realign his internal compass. He turned in a slow circle, examining the buildings, letting his mind map out the area. The information bubbled up from the back of his mind like water on a burner, coming into clear focus. Further west, roughly half a mile, maybe a bit over. There was a turn a third of the way there that'd take them north from the street they were on. His internal wiring shifted, the program to find the nearest safehouse activating as if he were somewhere in the past, where the mission was everything.

There was a whole lotta going back to Hydra going on that day for him. The part of him still thinking past the automatic responses wanted a warm and dark corner to hide in for awhile. He didn't have that freedom yet, so he let the takeover happen. It'd actually do more good this time than slaughtering enemy combatants.

Without a word, he followed his internal map, letting Captain America and Iron Man follow or not follow, their choice.

From close behind him, Iron Man spoke up. "Cap, those explosives on the quinjet. How'd you plan on getting them from there to here?"

"We figured after we'd secured the area, we'd go back for them."

"That seems tedious. I'll head back now and grab them. If anymore parties start while I'm gone, lemme know. I'll let you two claim all the glory. Unless you want me to go up like a firework on the Fourth of July."

"Not really. We'll meet you there."

The repulsors in the suit fired up and Iron Man took off, leaving the Winter Soldier with Captain America. And Captain America, it seemed, wanted to be chatty. "You got quiet. We're not lost, are we?" That sounded like a light-hearted jab, one that would normally be met with a retort from Bucky, from the Winter Soldier that was Captain America's partner.

Hydra's Winter Soldier couldn't respond to ribbing like that. "Negative." _Get me out of here_.

For a second, it didn't seem like Captain America would respond. Knowing that he'd say something despite that, the Winter Soldier counted off a predicted five and a half seconds before "Bucky-"

He stopped in his tracks, the Captain almost walking right by him for how abrupt it was. "Not now, Steve," he said through clenched teeth. "I don't have any other way of finding this place." _I don't want in this head anymore get me out._

This time it was a three second pause. "All right, Soldier. This is your mission, you know the way." The fact that Captain America- Steve -would call him any name but Bucky almost spooked Hydra's Soldier enough to disappear. _Good. Go away._ But the mission to return to base remained strong, strong enough to push him forward.

Down the street.

Turn right.

Three blocks.

A left and third building down.

The building seemed greyer, duller than what was in his memory, the sign that once proudly displayed the company name reduced to a faded _Akrikhin Farmatsev_ , part of the name missing from time and elements. But it was the right one. The Soldier was certain of it, a feeling of dread and comfort mixing in his gut. This was home, this was where he trained, learned, grew. But within was a chair. The tables. The cryo unit. It was the home of an abused child. And he didn't like it.

Bucky slowly resurfaced, taking several deep breaths to clear his head. Hydra's Winter Soldier's programming was no longer needed, they'd found the base. He didn't want that Soldier in that place again. He didn't want to go in there either, truth be told, but it was too risky for Hydra's Soldier to return to where he'd been created. It was impossible to say what he'd do, and Bucky wasn't interested in finding out. Taking every step in fear was better than taking every step further into an old brainwashing that he'd spent the better part of the last six months trying to escape.

Damnit, he wanted to go home and hide in a corner for awhile, then get to baking those cookies. Maybe an early five course Thanksgiving dinner. He'd decide later.

They waited patiently for Tony, or at least, they tried to. Bucky was jittery and tapping his finger nervously on his thigh again. Steve seemed like he was at a loss as to what to do. He tried anyway. "Is it safe to call you Bucky yet?"

Deep breath. Zen. _Zen_ goddamnit. "Yeah. We're here."

Steve put a hand on Bucky's flesh shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "We'll look for what we're here for, then blow this place up and it'll be over."

It'd never be over, but Bucky didn't want to disappoint Steve, so he simply made a noise that might've been agreement, might've been argumentative.

"Hydra picked a dump," Tony said in Bucky's earpiece, seconds before the sounds of his repulsors reached them. He landed on Bucky's other side, the case of explosive materials in his hand.

"It wasn't always," Bucky said, looking at the old building. "It's just collected dust."

"Let's go clear the dust out then," Steve said.

Bucky took an extra second behind Steve and Tony to swallow down his nerves, before following them into his past.


	6. Strange Things Have Happened Here

A/N: The color combo is a reference to a show that 90s kids would've probably watched. If you can catch it without Google, please marry me. I also accidentally stuck in an Emilie Autumn reference, but that was pretty much accidental and unlikely to be caught.

* * *

It felt still inside the base, dust only kicked up by their footsteps, but there was a thin haze of cobwebs and whispers in the air. Sunlight filtered in through dirty and broken windows. There was a chill that felt more than a little unnatural, like a strange blur on a photograph; uncertain what it was, more than likely nothing more than a trick of light. But there was always that possibility that it was something else, something unexplainable.

"This place feels like I'm on one of those ghost hunting shows that people think belong on science channels," Tony said, his voice interrupting a stillness that even his clanking metal-clad feet hadn't been able to chase away.

Bucky lingered back behind Tony and Steve, navigating through the main part of the warehouse, the rusting metal shelves, the haphazard scattering of boxes that may or may not still have medicine in them, the graffiti on the walls, and the way that nature was growing around the crumbling cement that made walking require a bit more care.

His gaze swept across the room, first the left, the shelves and stacks, then in front, Steve and Tony picking their way across rubble, then to the right, where a pair of the giant shelves were knocked down one on top of the other like fallen dominoes. The wall behind them had red graffiti in very plain script that read 'father, why have you forsaken us?' in Russian.

"There're a lot of ghosts here," he finally said. He made his way forward to catch up with Steve and Tony again.

Only, one of those ghosts was among the living.

He saw Tony and Steve exchange a look. He pretended not to.

"Hey, Snowman," Tony said, and it took Bucky a second to realize he was the target of that statement. "Anything on this floor we should investigate?"

"Did you just call me 'snowman'?"

Tony looked over at him. "You've already got a nickname for your real name, you need one for your code name. I could've called you Mister Freeze."

"If you ever call me either of those names again, I will have strong words for you, Tony." Irritating bastard. Irritating, _annoying_ bastard.

"Ah, good, you still have reactions. Okay, I repeat my question. Anything on this floor we should investigate?"

Still have rea- asshole. Manipulative asshole, although Bucky couldn't quite prevent a small smile behind his mask. _Thank you, I needed that break._ He shook his head, looking around. "Not unless you wanna see if they have any hypodermic needles left."

"Not exactly what we're here for," Steve said.

"Unless we wanna make a killing in the drug market," Tony added. "So Bucky, this entrance to the basement. Your map said it was off on the right somewhere. Is there a secret entrance, or do we just stroll down?"

"There's stairs," Bucky said, moving to take the lead. He was careful of where he placed his feet over the rubble and plants, sidestepping carefully around a tree root that had grown up and over the concrete. "It leads into a maintenance/utility area. The guts of the building are back there."

The doors leading to the back rooms were rusted, creaking in protest when Bucky grabbed one with his left hand, before snapping completely off its hinges and finding itself flung halfway across the room. Steve grabbed the other, but refrained from knocking the door completely off.

Damnit Steve. You and your self-control.

"It can't honestly be this easy to find a classified training area," Tony said. "Just walking into a utility room?"

"It's not," Bucky said, turning a corner, into a very large room filled with wires and cables, an emergency power switch, a small generator whose size belied how much power it could produce, and multiple circuit breaker boxes. "We just gotta hope that generator still works. They pretended it was in case of a power outage, but that was just public smoke blowing."

"Ah, there, a job for me," Tony said, stepping in past Bucky. "If it's dead I'll get it working."

Bucky didn't argue that he could've done it, it made Tony feel useful and Bucky was more interested the circuit breakers. He started looking for the one that opened the door to the basement stairs. He'd never had to use the door in there going down, he wasn't sure which box had the code. He knew the code, that was programmed into his brain, but which circuit breaker was the right one wasn't in there.

Guessing games. Because he just loved guessing games.

"What're we looking for, Bucky?" Steve asked, opening a circuit breaker box and staring at the various switches.

"One that has color labels instead of text," Bucky said, brow furrowing as frustration began to frazzle his already fried nerves. _I don't want down there, please let this box be gone._ "There's about fifty fucking million breaker boxes in here." And 'here' wasn't exactly a small crawl space. There was quite a bit of maneuvering room, big enough that he knew the door to the basement was wide enough to carry sizable pieces of equipment up to the first floor.

Fifty million was probably a conservative estimation.

"There's a couple above me," Tony said, and Bucky turned, spotting the two boxes just above the generator, one of which was larger than the others in the room.. "Give me thirty seconds and this spot is all yours."

Steve closed a breaker door and joined Bucky in waiting patiently while Tony worked. "I'm guessing the bigger one is the one we want."

Bucky almost agreed, but something in his gut said that was wrong. "We'll find out in a minute here."

"Less than," Tony said. The generator grumbled to life. "It wasn't completely dead, just needed a few old wires reattached." He stood and turned to the breakers. "So one of these has color coded switches, right? We just flip them in the right order then?"

Despite Tony being out of the way of the breaker boxes now, Bucky couldn't make his feet move towards them to see which one was the one he needed. That code that he desperately wanted to forget that very second was all that stood between him and a past he didn't want. He knew he had to sort through the place to look for anything that could harm him or Steve, and destroying it would prevent it from being used the way it had been on him ever again.

But he didn't want to go down to join the shadows and ghosts and silent screams.

Praise the goddamn Flying Spaghetti Monster that Steve rescued him from answering, walking over to the boxes. He opened them both. "Bucky? They're both color coded. Which one is it?"

Wait, what? Oh, fer fucks sake.

Bucky forced himself to look for the programming inside his brain without regressing back so far that Hydra took over again. "The small one. Open and then close the fuse switch for each color."

Steve closed the bigger box, focusing in on the smaller one. "I see pretty much every color in the rainbow in here. Are we going to use them all?"

Realizing that it'd be far easier to do it himself than to relay the code to Steve and hope he didn't fuck it up halfway through, Bucky stepped in next to him, having to look around Steve's broad shoulders a bit. Stupid serum making him stupid big and no, he was not going to let that go. "No. Here, let me do it."

Steve backed out of the way, and Bucky saw him exchange another glance with Tony. Bucky really wished they'd stop that. He wasn't on display for their judgment.

Instead of focusing on that, he went still, searching his brain for the code. Hydra answered him, although he didn't like it. Yellow, blue, red. Open and close the circuit. Blue, purple, blue. Open, close. Purple, green, yellow. He flipped the last circuit, hoping that he had it right and wouldn't have to retreat in his own mind further to get it if he was wrong.

To his immense relief, the far wall, with no small amount of groaning, slid back and then to the side, revealing wide steps leading down to the first basement.

Now to make his feet move again, this time down the stairs. He felt like a child afraid to go to sleep after hearing a scary story, certain he'd have a nightmare if he did. It was a bone-deep fear that he couldn't quite get his mind to articulate, couldn't vocalize any protests, though he desperately wanted to.

 _It's dark down there._

Once again, Steve came to his rescue- he was going to owe him later -taking one quick look at Bucky before walking to the stairs. "Let's go see what's down here. I'll go first. Tony, cover our rear."

Which put Bucky in a position of being escorted, an old and familiar one that made the whole trip feel like yet another one into the past. Don't trust the weapon. Keep the weapon secured. Never let it get a chance to run.

Steve speaking up with warnings about the stairs, where the concrete was loose, which ones were steeper than others, pulled him back a bit; he was being flanked by friends, who were doing nothing more than protecting him. Something Hydra never did.

Thank you, Steve. I might share my cookies with you later.

"The generator must've turned on the lights," Steve said, staring up at the ceiling once they'd finished navigating stairs that were decades old, but still strong.

The nice thought of cookies couldn't make the lights make it not dark in there for him. So much for that.

"Master of the obvious," Tony said. "It's a good thing you have me around. You would've been in here in the dark all day."

"I think we would've been fine with that thing," Steve said. "JARVIS, on the other hand, could prove useful. You said he scanned Bucky's map from the tablet?"

"Of course he did," Tony said, sounding wounded. "Bucky, anything we should be looking for down here, or should we skip right to finding those stairs into the great abyss?"

 _And when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you._ Thoroughly prefect time for Neiztche to come back to him. Thanks a lot, philosophy professor whose name has been lost into the void of Bucky's memories.

Bucky. Be Bucky. Bucky could find his way down there without Hydra's help. Be Bucky. Try not to sound like a goddamn robot when answering questions. "Unless you feel the burning need to see a lot of training rooms, not a lot to look for."

"Not trying to make this harder than it has to be," Tony said, "but anything besides gun ranges and big rooms to train hand-to-hand in might be something we need to investigate."

"I can stay back with Bucky," Steve said, "if you wanna go check it out, Tony."

Tony scanned the various hallways, and Bucky knew that JARVIS was analyzing what might be on the opposite side of those walls, walls that went on forever, dividing rooms and large training areas. "I'm picking up signs of old equipment that booted up with the generator, way down that way. They might be nothing of interest, but they might be computers that measured progress of the retraining project once the surgeries and chemicals had done their job."

 _Don't make me go back there. Get me out of here._ "They took their notes by hand. We have the only known paper copy."

"They might also have recorded the notes into those computers in later years. We don't need a digital copy that can be downloaded at someone else's convenience."

Tony just _had_ be right.

Damnit.

"Besides, you said _known_ copy," Tony pointed out, motioning towards the sound of something unknown running somewhere down the hall. "We want to look for others. That's why we're here, isn't it? To make sure this doesn't get found so it can't hurt anyone?"

Damnit, Tony, stop being right. Right this instant. You're being annoying.

"Then we'll check."

Steve put his had on Bucky's flesh shoulder. "If you want, we can send Tony and stay back."

Bucky shook his head. "No, if he has questions, I won't know what he's asking about if I can't see it." _I don't want to. I can hear gunshots. I smell blood._

Gritting his teeth, Bucky forced himself to walk forward, trying to push away Hydra. He'd already used more of that Winter Soldier than he'd promised himself outside, with the code hiding in his programming. _Stay away._ He tried to make the memory of his internal map be nothing more than that- a memory. Not programming.

It wasn't really working.

"So you said this place was used for training by more than just you, right?" Tony asked, falling into a place just off Bucky's left, a bit behind, letting Bucky lead the way.

Bucky made a vague noise of acknowledgment. "After the experiments, if they seemed successful, they were brought up here for further testing."

"So our equipment that lit up with the generator probably isn't going to be in any of those rooms. Less risk to expensive equipment than to put them next to dangerous people with dangerous weapons."

Another noise. "I don't remember ever seeing computers down here."

"Might've been added later," Steve said. "Or in rooms you were never taken into."

This time, Bucky didn't bother with a noise.

They explored the basement as much as possible, leaving the electric signal JARVIS picked up on for whenever they found that room. It wasn't going anywhere, they had time.

Several times, Bucky had to hang back and force himself to simply breathe and nothing else. In. Out. He was not there, not in training, these were just old rooms, rooms that were no longer prison cells to keep a person they were molding into a weapon in. Steve and Tony didn't say anything about it, merely slowed their pace, explored the room more thoroughly than really needed until Bucky could force himself to join them again.

They passed through a larger room that looked like a jungle gym, walls to scale, stairs to climb, ceilings to maneuver along, and a smaller room along one side, wide open glass separating it from the bigger part of the room. An observation room.

Observing the reset procedures. Observing how effective the Winter Soldier was, how well the experiments and conditioning were performing. _I shouldn't be here. Get me out._

Steve put a hand on his flesh arm again, startling him slightly. He didn't ask why Bucky had stopped, possibly didn't need to, possibly just avoiding it for Bucky's sake. Bucky pursed his lips together, nodded once, then resumed walking, Steve by his side. Partners. Something Hydra's weapon had never had. It got him through the room.

As they worked their way through rooms, they finally started to find areas that Bucky had only been in briefly, areas that had no particular meaning to him, just a path from the labs to the testing rooms.

"Here we go," Tony said, interrupting the silence. "This is the room with the signal." He pushed open the rusted door, similar to so many before, and just as noisy. The room wasn't terribly big, didn't need to be it looked like. There were computers and desks, with larger computer towers along the walls.

"These computers don't look as old as the ones Zola was in," Steve said, glancing at Bucky before wandering away, brushing the dust off the monitor of one of the computers. "So sooner than the seventies."

"Looks like late eighties, maybe early nineties," Tony said. He motioned Bucky over, holding up the case with the explosives. "Come hold this. I need to get into the servers."

Bucky didn't protest to being relegated to the muscle, it meant he didn't have to do anything but continue to keep his brain in the right place and not worry about the labs just yet.

It took Tony several minutes, arguing at the computers the whole time and JARVIS giving him status reports in a tone that suggested he either was trying to calm Tony, or rile him up further. Tony didn't respond as if that tone were either. "Okay, this stuff's no younger than when the Soviet Union went down," he announced. "And we're not finding any backed up record older than sixty-five. Nothing even remotely related to the Winter Soldier project. Mostly just stuff about medicines that we've got today. Nothing to really bother with. We could plant some of the explosives here, though. It's a support room, according to the map."

"Bucky, want the honors?" Steve asked.

"I wouldn't let you do it anyway," Bucky said, now in a familiar routine that let him respond like Bucky. "You're terrible at it."

While Bucky began setting up the explosives, wrapping them around the servers to create a slow burn fuse that'd be ignited by the electric current, Steve made a token noise of protest. "I am not."

"You are too," Bucky said, not looking up from his work. "Tony, read the map, where else would be a good place for these things? The second basement's too far underground, planting explosives down there would be a waste of time."

Tony didn't answer right away, not beyond a mumbling that sounded like he was just talking to himself as he looked through the map. "There's a second support room just down the hall. They're middle supports, not wall supports. If you have enough, I see a couple wall supports on that side, too. That should drop the building in on itself."

Bucky paused, giving Tony a glare. "Yes, Tony, I know how to blow up a building. I just needed to know where the other supports were." He repacked some of the explosives he wouldn't be using in that room and handed them to Tony. "Here, go be useful and set those up in the other rooms."

"I've _been_ useful," Tony argued, but he took the explosives box. "But since I'm so nice, I'll ignore that unfair statement and go set up in the other rooms."

Steve crouched down by Bucky once the sounds of Tony's footsteps had faded. "You gonna be okay?"

 _No. The labs are next._ "Yeah, I'll be fine."

Steve knew Bucky better than that. "Even when we get downstairs?"

Once again, Bucky had to pause what he was doing, putting the fuse down before he did something horrible. "Maybe." That was as honest as he'd get.

"Did you want to skip that level? Just let the top two floors crush it?"

 _Yes. Let me out of here. Don't make me go down there._ "Can't. Gotta make sure there's nothing down there we need first." He resumed wrapping the electric coil, trying to tune out the screams he was hearing from downstairs. They weren't real, just more memories haunting him like nightmares.

Steve put his hand on Bucky's flesh shoulder, thankfully having waited until Bucky was no longer messing with explosives and fuses. "Bucky, I'd have to be blind to see that you don't want to go down there. We can skip it. The explosions will bury it."

It was tempting. Very tempting. The words 'get me out of here' scratched at the back of his throat, trapping themselves there.

But the tiny chance that there was something more down there, a record, or a chemical that could be used to replicate the project, or equipment that needed more than part of a building dropping on it to destroy it, made it impossible for him to give into that temptation.

And some small part of him knew he had to face it. Try to reduce its power over him. Take himself back from Hydra. He didn't want to live in that lab anymore.

"No," he finally managed to say through the hoarseness that his thoughts had embedded into his voice. "We can't risk anything down there surviving to be used again."

Steve, ever annoying about it, knew better than to believe everything that came out of Bucky's mouth. "Used on you." Not a question. Not a statement.

Bucky closed his eyes, grinding his teeth together. "Stop it, Steve. Not now."

That had to be better than the silent treatment, right?

Steve seemed to accept that, didn't give a verbal reply, just squeezed Bucky's shoulder before standing. "How's it going over there, Tony?"

"You wanna give me a minute?" Tony's voice replied through their ear pieces. "I had to travel to set these up. We're going downstairs after this, right?"

"Confirmed," Bucky said, then bit his tongue. He'd done it again. He wasn't even in hell yet and he was already backsliding. The others wouldn't notice, that was standard military speak. But inside Bucky's head, it wasn't the sergeant that answered, it was the weapon. He was so sick of the base, so sick of the backsliding, so sick of losing six hard-earned months.

At least he wouldn't have to be approached by Steve about it.

"I'll meet you at the stairwell," Tony said. "I'm setting up the timer in JARVIS's system. Want me to stop in the computer room again and set that fuse up too? Get them both at the same time?"

"Please," Steve said. "We were just going to use the phone, but JARVIS is probably more reliable."

"Damn right he is," Tony said with no small amount of pride in his voice. "Go ahead, old guys. I know you need a head start."

"Can it, Tony," Steve said.

Bucky normally would've found Steve's reaction funny, or have had a reaction to Tony himself, but he was focused on keeping himself in one piece. Just a bit longer. Get through the basement. Search it, get the fuck out and blow the place to hell.

The air by the stairwell was chilly, as expected from a floor two levels into the ground in a cold month. The whole basement would be cold. _Don't put me back in there._

"We need to get you a coat for your uniform," Steve said, drawing Bucky's attention just enough for him to blink in confusion. "You look cold."

"Yeah, maybe," Bucky managed to say. A coat wasn't going to help in this situation; he supposed that lowering the chances of frostbite or heat stroke from the port on his shoulder getting exposed to extreme weather wasn't a bad idea. So yeah. Maybe.

Steve seemed at a loss of what else to say, and the situation made it obvious enough that he probably shouldn't try. Bucky thanked his lucky stars for that. He wasn't in the mood for idle conversation, not even with Steve. He couldn't think like that, was trying too hard to keep in one mind and not another. _I don't want to be here anymore._

It seemed like forever, but Tony finally joined them. "Explosives armed and ready," he announced as he joined them. He looked past Bucky and Steve to the dark stairs. "Looks like that generator didn't kick on any lights down there."

Oh good, a momentary distraction. Bucky reached forward with his left hand until he felt the resistance of hitting something against it. He flipped the light switch, and the stairwell lit up. He looked at Tony.

"You don't need to rub it in."

The sound of the draft in the basement, the sound of a soft dying breath, pulled Bucky's attention back to the stairs. Cold continued to whisper up, wrap itself around him like walking through cobwebs that were invisible to the eye. He did his best to not hide from it, to not regress into someone who simply knew it to be his reality. Each step down thudded against the dusty stairs, stirring ghosts and night terrors.

It was so cold.

There was another light switch at the bottom of the stairs. This one illuminated several branches of hallways, each leading down to the other side of the foundation.

"These are where the drug experiments were done?" Steve asked, stepping over to one branch to look down it, then another. "They all look alike."

"JARVIS isn't picking up anything," Tony said. "The only power usage is the overheads." He looked at Bucky. "Should we split up? Cover more ground?"

The way he asked that made Bucky think that he was giving him a chance to back out, to force them to stick together, or even just retreat.

But if Bucky ran away, he was taking Hydra with him. And he'd be running from them in his mind his whole life. He had to do _something_ to tell his brain it was okay to stop, to go home and _stay_ home. It wasn't that easy, wouldn't be that easy, but maybe putting some voices still lingering in that basement to rest would help. He was desperate.

"Split up," he said, his voice sounding distant to his own ears. He could see out of the corner of his eye that Steve was gearing up to argue. "Captain, take the far left. Stark, take the middle. I'll take this side."

Backsliding. The speech patterns of the Winter Soldier as mission head. Hopefully, it'd tell Captain America that now was not the time for a heartfelt talk.

"This is your mission, Soldier," Captain America said, almost chasing Hydra away with that name again, but the Winter Soldier was starting to grip his brain. Bucky could try to navigate the place all he wanted on his own, but he wouldn't make it far. Bucky was too fragile. The Winter Soldier had conditioning, programming. He feared, he screamed, but never cried. Never broke. Continued to be a working weapon.

At least until Captain America had come along.

But that didn't change that Bucky Barnes couldn't go back down these halls as easily as the Winter Soldier could. So with extreme reluctance, Bucky went back on his attempts to not become the weapon again and let it happen naturally. Maybe he'd survive the place in one piece if he did.

Iron Man took the hint. "You heard him, Cap," he said. "I'll take the middle, we'll see if it meets up at the end."

The Winter Soldier walked with a deliberate care, not looking for combatants or even human life of any sorts. Not down there. Not with the state of the grounds. But he couldn't afford to miss anything that might be part of the mission.

The various rooms lining both sides of the hall were basic exam rooms, once sterile tables and counters with rusty steel syringes and bottles that may or may not still contain experimental medicines cluttering the tops. Straps attached to the exam tables were mostly rotted in many of the rooms.

He slowed to a stop by each one, performing a quick inspection, before moving on to the next. He stopped in the doorway of one, taking in details as he had the others. The same medicines and various medical tools were scattered about, but this one had a stand by the bed, with more syringes, scalpels, and an amputation saw. The counter had a spread of torn up computer pieces, no longer useable, evidence of something more that room was used for than simple medicine testing.

His arm began to hurt.

He walked on.

 _Get me out of here._

Ignoring the voice that seemed familiar in his head, the Winter Soldier reached the end of the hall and glanced down as it followed to his left. It looked like the halls all converged on the far end, where a larger room was.

The others hadn't caught up to him yet, and with no worries of danger, the Winter Soldier continued his mission to search the basement labs. He entered the large room, groping around on the inside wall for a light switch.

It was waking up into a reality that overshadowed everything in his mind. Before Hydra was gone. After Hydra never existed. Every terror he'd ever had was in there. A mindwipe chair. An isolated observance room. A phlebotomy chair with half-rotted straps over the arms and wrists and ankles.

At the far end, the cryo unit, the thick door, the one view window, the pipes and cooling machines spread across the wall like a spider web wrapping around a spider's prey.

There were screams in that room, not voiceless, loud in his ears, loud in his brain as terror boiled over and burned away rational thought. It hit the cold with a deafening hiss; fire and ice slammed into each other with enough force to shatter the thick steel wall he'd tried to erect between Bucky and Hydra. The Winter Soldier couldn't protect Bucky from the weapon.

He scrambled backwards, tripped over his own feet and hit the ground hard. He didn't stop moving, skittering back until he could get around on his hands and feet to get up.

"Bucky!"

 _Don't take me back there don't take me back there get out get out get out._

"I got him!"

 _No no no._

Fear was still screaming in the back of his mind, in the back of his throat and he didn't give a damn if that scream was coming out of his mouth, he _could not go back there._

A strong arm caught his left arm and hauled him up off his hands. "Easy!"

He twisted his arm, trying every trick he knew to get out of the agent's grip, but somehow, the vice on his arm was at least as strong than his metal arm. Of course. They'd take preventive measures.

It was cold. It was freezing. Everything inside of him wanted to run, but ice slowed down his blood. The fire had been extinguished as fear returned to its natural state of a cold terror.

"Bucky!"

A voice he remembered. The last he'd heard. He tried to reach back, hoping that the source of the voice could catch him this time. The person gripping his metal arm didn't let go. He was falling again.

Someone else caught hold of his flailing flesh arm. He dropped himself into deadweight, trying to get away from them, get them to let go so he could run. _I don't want to go back._

"Bucky, easy!" The metal arm was free, but the flesh one was still held tight as he landed on the ground, backed against the wall. His metal hand shot out, trying to assault whoever had a hold on him. His fist was caught in someone's grip. "Bucky, it's Steve! It's okay now!"

"We should get him out of here," another voice said.

Wait.

He knew these voices.

He drew his knees up to his chest, only weakly struggling to get his arms back, his whole body shaking hard enough for his teeth to chatter and his stomach want to upend itself. His arms were released and the contact was replaced by Steve wrapping his own arms around his shoulders. "Shh, Bucky, it's okay now. You're not back there."

Bucky curled up his arms over his face, buried in the safety of Steve holding him, every muscle sore from tension. Tears burned his eyes. It was cold and lights were on and he wanted a dark and warm corner somewhere.

As seconds ticked by into minutes, he felt his heartbeat slow down, and he was able to breathe normally, coughing a couple times, clearing away the sobs he didn't know he'd been making. His eyes stung from salt, his face slightly wet where the mask slipped over his cheeks.

"It's okay, Bucky," Steve repeated.

Take a breath. One more. "I'm okay," he said. "I'm here."

A clank of metal and the familiar hum of servos running just barely took his attention away from the warm grip Steve still had him in. "You okay to get out of here?" Tony asked.

Breathe. Bucky nodded, too shaky and still too cold to be anything but eager to get out of the lowest level of hell with its freezing air. He might feel shame later that Tony had seen another violent episode, but right then, he just wanted out.

Tony led the way. Steve stayed next to Bucky, an arm around his shoulders, keeping him grounded, navigating for Bucky so that he didn't have to focus on more than keeping off any more panic.

Up the stairs.

Through the labyrinth of the first basement.

Back up to the utility room.

Past the graffiti that said 'father why have you forsaken us?'

Out the door and down the streets.

Steve led him back towards their quinjet, getting only a block away from the former base before Bucky finally had the presence of mind to stop and look back. "What about the explosives?"

"I'll set them off after you two are out of blast range," Tony said. "Just worry about getting back to the jet."

He was too tired to even think of that as a mission. It was just a combination of words that meant nothing beyond that if he followed the instructions, he'd be away from hell, maybe even clawing his way out of its darkness and ice.

Steve didn't push any conversation, just kept his arm around Bucky's shoulders, keeping the rest of his attention on the streets around them.

After walking several blocks, behind them an explosion filled the air with dust and noise, noise that thundered like a strike of lighting had just hit. Bucky nearly jumped out of his skin with the thunder crack, whirling and reaching for his derringer with a hand too shaky to handle it.

Steve put a hand on his shoulder. "Easy, it's just the explosives."

Bucky clenched his right fist to keep it still as they waited for signs of trouble. There was nothing to see except the dust and the glow of Tony's repulsors as he approached them. The thunder-like growl coming from the building as it collapsed made it impossible to hear him.

He landed next to them. "One building successfully turned into a crater, as planned."

"Then let's get out of here," Steve said, not dropping his arm.

Bucky rolled his shoulder out of Steve's grip. Steve looked at him with slight questioning on his face. Bucky nodded once. "I'll be fine," he said, just barely above a whisper.

Steve didn't argue, but he stayed by Bucky's side, Tony taking up the other, putting Bucky between a barrier of friends ready to defend him.

It was nice, but not enough to shake off the exhaustion and sickness from that basement.

 _I don't want in this head anymore. It's cold._


	7. Today I Found My Face

Bucky hadn't even argued when he was told he didn't get to sit in the pilot or copilot's seats. He was banished to the back before he could even pretend to give a protest. He didn't mind. It put Tony's back to him, and Steve would have to get out of his seat just to see him.

It wasn't a warm corner, and not terribly dark, but it was darker than the seats up front were. Close enough for now.

He barely registered Steve and Tony talking up front, though he caught enough to know that they were talking about him. The stop in Sweden was mentioned as something that might be a difficulty for Bucky. They weren't wrong, but he'd survive. He'd survived worse than having to pretend he was okay around strangers. If it came to it, he'd stop being Bucky again.

Not that hiding behind the Winter Soldier- Hydra's or otherwise -had really helped him in that base, but unless there was a god and he hated Bucky with a passion, there wouldn't be anything particularly menacing to Bucky's state of mind in Sweden.

"I didn't see anything either," Steve said. "I was focused on Bucky."

Bucky lifted his head, finally tuning into the conversation.

"So was I. Think he'll talk to you?"

Steve made a frustrated noise. "Not likely. He never talks to me. Not really." He sounded somewhere between hurt and angry.

Bucky shrank back into his corner more. He had explained that. How was he supposed to translate the fear and pain into words that made any sense at all? That tone was unnecessary and fuck you, Rogers.

"Let me give it a try."

Oh great. Fuck you too, Stark.

Bucky wanted to be left alone, but obviously, his friends had other plans for him. Despite his best efforts to put up a mental barrier between him and them, there was Tony, hopping out of his seat and then crouching down in front of him, completely uninvited and not caring about it. "You look cold."

Bucky gave him a blank stare, trying to process what he said, how it was relevant, and how did he know?

At Bucky's silence, Tony pointed at his flesh arm. "You're shivering." He stood up before Bucky could finish realizing that Tony was right, he was still trembling. Tony started searching the various hiding places the jet had for storing equipment. "There has to be an emergency kit somewhere. Something with blankets and little stuffed bears for kids you liberate from trafficking or something, right?"

"We've never had to rescue kids," Steve said in response. "But there are emergency packs in the front bins on the side behind me."

Tony began pulling out an emergency kit. "You know, with your jobs, you might consider having to plan to transport children or otherwise young and scared humans. Get more than- ah, a blanket."

Bucky wished they'd both shut up and leave him alone, but he knew that was about as likely as pigs sprouting wings and flying. So he sat there, shaking, waiting for Tony to fuss at him in a Tony sort of way.

Tony's way of fussing was to drop the rolled up blanket on his ankles. "I figure you're a big boy, and probably too prideful for being tucked in, so there you go."

Bucky silently thanked him, glad that Tony decided not to unroll that blanket for him, and simultaneously shameless enough right that moment to grab the blanket, unroll it, and pull it up over his shoulders. It took him a moment to remember his manners and thanked Tony.

"You're welcome," Tony said, not sounding quite like his usual irritating self about it. He sat down across from Bucky, crossing his legs under him like he was getting ready for another long lecture like he'd given in his work room. "So this is the point where I try to play therapist, or at least decent friend with a listening ear which is sometimes better than a regular therapist."

Bucky closed his eyes, really wishing Tony would go away.

"You're not getting out of it."

"Trapping me in a corner is a bad way to approach an assassin whose head isn't stable," Bucky said, voice much quieter and with less warning behind it than he wanted.

Tony tilted his head, considering that, then scooted over to sit next to Bucky instead. "There, you can get up and walk away, any time. Better?"

Bucky shrugged one shoulder. Marginally, but he still wasn't comfortable. But he could tell Tony was at least trying, and he appreciated that, although he'd appreciate it more if Tony would go back up front and everyone leave him alone until he was ready to come out of the corner on his own. Or until they got to Sweden. Whichever happened first.

"So you were pretty spooked down there." Master of the obvious. "Mind if I ask what set it off? Cap and I didn't see anything but you."

Bucky pulled the blanket tighter over his shoulders. "I really don't wanna talk about it."

"You have to eventually," Tony said. "Otherwise whatever it was is going to haunt you the rest of your life. The dead weren't the only ghosts down there, were they?"

Bucky had trouble trying to translate his brain again, not sure if he even wanted to. Finally, he shook his head. Tony was right. It'd take being dead for someone to be a ghost. That lab was where James Barnes from Brooklyn had been killed, and the Winter Soldier born. They both haunted that place, a grave where a weapon was made. Bucky may have physically gotten out, but the Winter Soldier had gone with him. And he couldn't see any escape from him.

It seemed they were stuck together.

But he couldn't get his brain to come up with words to describe that. He just saw the cryo chamber and every single thing in that room and how it made everything in his brain scream in panic; he had to try to get away before he could be pulled back under the ice.

Just like in the lab only a day or so ago- how had more time not passed? -Tony continued to just keep talking, as if hoping that if he threw enough darts, one would hit a bullseye.

"So tell me, which one of you was it down there?"

There was an almost bullseye. He slowly looked over at Tony, wondering how Tony could possibly know the disassociation defense mechanism that sometimes protected his fragile mental health.

"I talk to Bruce a lot," Tony said. "I don't think it's too different. He spends all his time trying to keep the other guy from having any say in what he does, you get familiar with the split personality thing."

Bucky shook his head. "It's not the same. Bruce and the Hulk aren't the same person."

"But you and the Winter Soldier are." Another near bullseye. Or close enough to win that fifty points.

Bucky went back to silence.

"You can't shut everyone out forever," Tony warned though his tone was gentle like someone approaching a wounded animal that might bolt with the wrong word or move. "Something's going to give, just like down there, and you might not have Steve there to catch you."

Bucky started trying to disappear under his blanket, pulling it up over his chin. The idea that Steve wouldn't be there when he needed him was a terrifying one. It'd been bad enough when Steve worked at the VA, he couldn't handle going back to that loneliness.

"I'm hitting too close to home, aren't I?" Tony asked. "Think I can get you to talk?"

Bucky shook his head. "You're not my partner."

That finally shut Tony up for a moment, nodding his head very slightly as those words shot down his arguments. "All right, completely fair. Want me to take over flying so he can come back here for awhile?"

"No. Later."

"When you're alone."

Bucky didn't answer beyond a faint noise.

Tony patted his arm and stood up. "I'll go back to playing copilot then. We'll see how you feel when we hit Sweden, if you want to take over for me and let me rest a bit. I'm not quite as superhuman as you guys are, and I didn't pack enough Red Bulls for this long of a trip."

"I'll be fine."

"We'll see."

Tony got up, without talking, grace be, and took his seat in the copilot's seat again.

Bucky closed his eyes again, turning on the mental radio, looping songs in his head in an attempt to drown out the voices of Hydra and the fear of that room, and decades of torture. It wasn't working well, the music mashing up with the feelings and images and colors that scrambled around his brain like someone had injected something into him that turned his mind into mush.

He immediately stopped the music and just hoped for the best.

Sweden wasn't quite as hard as he thought, but it was far from fun. Everything inside still was shaky and he started to worry just how long that anxiety would linger. It'd been hours and he still felt like he wanted to hide in a corner and cry for awhile. So he- with a lot of reluctance -pulled the Soldier around his shoulders like a blanket, enough to keep him steady but not enough to disappear completely.

He said nothing except to respond to questions directed at him- "Do you want food while we're here?" "Negative." "Anything to drink?" "Negative." He could tell he was frustrating Steve, but Steve would just have to wait until they were back home before he could start the interrogation. If he knew how much effort it was taking to hide without completely losing sight of who his friends even were, he'd be giving him a damn medal of honor.

"So we have a decision to make here," Tony told them while they waited for the jet to be refueled.

Steve looked up from the french fry he seemed to be debating about putting in his mouth. Bucky wondered why a military compound in Sweden had American food to offer them while they waited, but he let that slide.

"We have two options," Tony said. He held up one finger. "One, you can drop me off in DC to catch a ride of my own back to California and you two will be home."

That sounded preferable.

"Or?" Steve raised an eyebrow.

"Or we can go back to my place, give you two a chance to recharge where you know you won't have to go back out until you're ready."

"We can relax at our own place just fine," Steve said, setting the fry back down.

"I figured," Tony said. "But you told me that you go through your entire kitchen's contents when you get home from a mission. This means you'll have to turn around and go right back into public the next day. And you've been gone awhile, all your fresh food has probably joined the choir eternal."

All of that hard won silence in Bucky's head started beating against the inside of his skull again. He wanted to go _home._ But Tony was right, they'd have to go out almost right away just for food, and Bucky really wanted to have a few days to just hide and be left relatively alone.

Steve looked at him; he was leaving the decision in Bucky's hands. Bastard.

The best decision he was going to give them was a shrug. "I'm just a sergeant."

There Steve, it's all yours.

For some reason, Steve didn't like that hot potato getting thrown back at him, if the frown he shot Bucky was any indication. "I guess we'll go back to Cali with you. I hope you call ahead to Pepper so she knows how much food to get before we get there."

"I would never dream of failing to warn my lady of something important," Tony said. "Our door's open, gentlemen, so unless you want to brood over how rotted that celery in your crisper's going to be, you'll have a chance to relax for awhile."

Bucky knew damn good and well that the entire invitation and its purpose was for his sake, and part of him wanted to strangle them both for the offer and acceptance. The other part of him was saying he didn't care, he just wanted a damn corner to hide in. Steve wouldn't let him stay there either way, but at least he wouldn't have to immediately go out into public to grocery shop before he was suitably recovered.

Why was this taking so long? What was wrong with his head? This should've passed by now.

Maybe he just needed sleep. It was just an adrenaline hangover, that was all. Just needed some sleep.

Sleep wasn't anything he was getting just yet, but his mind could run longer than Tony's, and the desire to get to a rest point was enough that he could focus on flying. So they turned back to their routine they'd had on the way to Kiev once they were off the ground, rotating shifts. They gave Tony shorter shifts up front- physically, he was older than them, and it turned out that he actually didn't have enough Red Bulls. They were gone by his first rotation. So Steve and Bucky took over and let Tony rest.

Flying away from the place where the Winter Soldier had been created was actually easier than flying towards it had been, and time seemed to fly right along with them. The more distance, the more he reminded himself that the place was blown to hell, the better he felt. His mind was still trying to dredge up the memory of that room, and his right hand would begin to shake slightly when it did, but a deep breath and staring at the control panels in front of him regrounded him. If nothing else, he had to tell himself that he had a mission. That mission was to get home, or at least to California.

Even the Soldier was able to quiet the sick feeling in his gut. There was something to do, something that was taking him away from that place.

One of these days, he'd figure out how to destroy Hydra's Soldier and just leave Bucky, but it probably wasn't going to be any day soon.

Upon reaching California, Tony showed just how tired he was by handing the keys to his car to Steve. "Put a scratch on her and ... and... I'll hurt you somehow. It will be gruesome and painful. Do yourself a favor and drive like a little old lady."

Steve took the keys. "Relax, I know how to drive. It's Bucky that mangles steering wheels."

Tony turned his tired look on Bucky. "You are never allowed to drive any of my cars."

"Steve exaggerates."

"Don't care. Get in the back."

Fine. Put the dangerous assassin with head problems behind you. Talk about trust.

Pepper held the door open once they got home without asking questions, allowing them to enter with the now-empty cooler and the case with the suit. "Leave them for now," she said, closing the door behind them. Both cooler and case were set down with no small amount of gratitude. By then, they were all exhausted on every level. "I see you found trouble," she said. "More than usual? You two are bloody."

Steve looked at himself, and mostly over his shoulder at the bit of the shield he could see, which still carried blood from the horrific damage it could do to soft and fleshy human bits when thrown hard enough. "I was expecting this. It happens."

Bucky refused to look at her at that point, lowering his head to stare down at his weapon hand. The glove had dried stiff from a faint spattering of blood from his knife fight with a patrol's worth of armed men. He was sure there was blood from that elsewhere.

"Don't worry, none of it's ours," Steve was saying as Bucky's attention returned to the others. "We'll clean up before we go messing up your furniture."

"My furniture isn't a concern. Your safety is. You're certain none of that's yours?"

"I'm sure, Pepper."

Bucky glanced up without lifting his head as Pepper turned her attention to Tony. "I'm assuming the suit's dirty."

"Not with blood," Tony said. "It's just a bit dusty. I'll hose her off after I plant myself in the bath for awhile. Thaw out a bit. It was cold over there."

A bath. Water too cold to not be painful. A hose to advance defrosting in vital areas. Cold turning to a burn. After the ice came the slow ascent up and of course there was always one more thing to go through before the next step in the cycle, after the freeze.

Bucky quickly backed out of the conversation and turned for the guest room without so much as a word.

"Bucky?"

Bucky ignored Steve, just barely keeping his pace steady and not breaking into a run.

He thought he'd been alright, finally out of that place, but Tony's words had sent him quickly removing himself from the conversation. He thought he'd left that cryo chamber and its horrors behind. He should've. That was the whole point. But parts were still there. He was still cold. He didn't want to walk backwards, to let those words sink in. So running away seemed the most polite thing to do.

It wasn't Tony's fault. He didn't know. None of them did. That one was all on Bucky.

But that chamber was fresh in his mind, and along with it, the shock of his heart starting again, the way his skin burned from the ice. The cold made him shiver hard enough to drop to the ground after closing the bedroom door, leaning against it and trying to take deep breaths. In and out.

 _Don't take me back there. Please._

"Shut up, James," he snapped at himself in a whisper. "It's just a goddamn shower. We have blood on us, we need to clean up."

Great. Now not only was he talking to himself, he was answering himself, too.

Without a clue as to whether he was Bucky or the Soldier or whoever else might've moved into his head, he made himself get up. Strip. Carefully fold dirty uniform on the floor of the closet to be cleaned later. Go into the bathroom. Close the door.

The tub was against the far wall, a shower head on a hose, something that would be normally inviting because long hair could get so _greasy_ and showers meant his scalp got a good scrubbing. Now, he could only stare at the whole set up, unwilling and unable to do anything with either the shower or the tub.

Oh for fuck's sake. He was standing completely naked in a bathroom, shaking and terrified of stepping into a tub to take a _shower._ He'd never had a problem with a shower before, usually nowhere near conscious to be aware of the spray of those hoses to be affected by it since then. But there was the tub, making the whole thing into an echo of ugly memories; he hadn't had to face that particular demon yet. Not like this.

"Come on," he told himself. "If we don't shower, Steve might actually come in here and dump us headfirst into the tub."

That was a dreadful thought, and thank you, self, for coming up with it.

He turned on the tap to a temperature almost dangerously high, higher than the slow and careful defrosting he got coming out of cryo; any water that may gather around his feet and ankles would be too warm to trigger the memories and cause him to have a nervous breakdown in the shower of all places.

On the other hand, at least it'd be in the bathroom.

Get in. _Get in_ , for the love of god.

Oh Jesus. Okay, maybe that water was a tiny bit too hot. It didn't take him long to clean up, but his skin was bright red when he turned off the water and got out. The lobster look wasn't that good on him, he decided once he was looking in the mirror to make sure he got all the blood off. Lobster skin was a small price to pay though, for not having to get back in and all but grab a pumice stone and take off skin.

He knew Steve well enough to not be surprised by his presence in the bedroom when Bucky emerged from the bathroom. "Water hot enough?" Steve asked in a dry tone, raising his eyebrows at him.

"A bit," Bucky said, trying to ignore the statement or the fact that his insides still felt like a slushie with some weird blue flavoring that never tasted like anything except horrible.

Steve graced him by not saying anything else, simply taking his turn at the shower while Bucky dressed. He wasn't going to sit in the bedroom and wait for him, Steve could find his own way around the place by now. Remembering to close the bedroom door behind him, he went to the living room.

Where nobody was.

He checked the kitchen.

Nope.

The basement?

Hm. No.

A complete search of the house, or at least the parts he was familiar with, proved that either Pepper and Tony had left them, or perhaps had both laid down for sleep. It was late, Tony was tired, and Pepper had probably gotten very little sleep while they were out.

Hell. He wasn't sure he wanted sleep, not with the nightmares still so close to the surface, but his options at this point was to sit down at the TV and hope that Steve wouldn't try to start a conversation outside the privacy of the guest room, or go back to the bedroom and hope that Steve would leave him alone.

Which he wouldn't.

Damnit, Steve.

Maybe he'd get lucky and Steve would be tired, too. While sleeping meant nightmares, it also meant a bit of distance from the room that caused those nightmares. As long as Steve was there.

Fuck his brain, it had him turned around about two hundred and seventeen degrees. He was going to lay down, even if he didn't sleep. He needed rest, everyone else seemed to be resting, it made no sense to wander the house, so back to the guest room.

Steve was still in the shower when Bucky entered. It qualified as a sound of not being alone, but Bucky still changed his mind and decided against crawling under the blankets, choosing to sit cross-legged on the bed. He grabbed his tablet, and with reluctance, grabbed the base layout again and started filling out the second basement.

He hoped that showing Steve what was there that had panicked him would be easier than trying to tell him. Trying to describe the terror of being trapped in that little unit, the few seconds before ice took over and left him floating somewhere between being dead and alive, felt impossible. Even just thinking that much on it put a heavy lump in his stomach, and he was very glad that the group had apparently decided to eat another time.

Actually, that reminded him. "Did I miss anything when I left to take my shower?" he asked as soon as Steve walked out of the bathroom.

"Yeah, a little," Steve said, grabbing his night wear from their bag. Once he'd finished dressing, he walked over and sat down on the bed next to Bucky. "Sleep for everyone. It's late enough, we might as well go to bed." He looked over Bucky's shoulder at the map. "Why are you looking at this?"

"Second basement's filled in." Bucky handed over the tablet.

Steve took the tablet, looking more at Bucky than the image. He looked like he wanted to say something about it, but Bucky kept a flat look on his face, hoping that Steve would catch that he wasn't going to explain and Steve could figure it out himself. Steve picked up on the hint and looked at the map. "This is the room at the end of the halls?" he asked, pointing to the far end of the map.

"Yeah."

Come on, Steve, you're a smart boy, don't fail now.

Steve went back to studying it, manipulating the image to zoom in on the lowest level, looking at the row of labs that Bucky had gone down, the halls he hadn't gone down still blank. He turned the image to study that far room. "They had a chair." Steve looked at him. "Was that it?"

"No."

Steve's eyebrows raised, but he went back to the image. "What's with the pipes?" He paused, then looked over at Bucky, the lightbulb over his head, though he didn't seem to like the realization. "The cryo chamber."

"Judecca." It was the best word his brain could latch onto, the first one to come close to describing what it was like, the cold, the silence.

" _Dante's Inferno_ ," Steve said. "I didn't think you knew that book."

"I went to college, Steve. It's classic literature. I read more than chemistry text books there."

Steve ignored the attempt at flippancy. "That's what scared you. More than the chair." He was making a statement, but it was asking for confirmation.

Speak, Bucky. Make like a good dog and fucking speak. You said you'd try. His finger tapped on his knee in agitation, trying to find words that made sense. "Do you remember being under the ice? Up north?"

Steve shook his head. "No, not really. I hit my head in the crash. I managed to get out of the pilot's seat, grab my shield, but that was it. I passed out. Next thing I knew, I was listening to a broadcast of a baseball game that'd already happened with a fake SSR agent showing up to try to bullshit me."

"That was it?"

"It wasn't that simple for you, was it?"

Observant. Of course, now that left Bucky having to come up with a response. He was the one that took the conversation that way, his brain sure as hell better think of something good.

"Never was." Say more. Say something. Anything. Don't you dare get sick. You can use words. "I don't want to go back there. Don't make me go back." Okay, not the right words, but they were words. Give yourself a cookie later.

Still fully committed to making those cookies.

The bed shifted as Steve moved, set aside the tablet, and pulled Bucky into a hug, as if trying to make a human wall between Bucky and Hydra. "Nobody's going to put you back in that thing. Not without getting past me."

Human contact. Basic human contact that he'd been deprived of for decades. Nice panacea, he'd discovered, and right then, he was going to be selfish and take it and not let go. For at least a few minutes, Steve was going to have to find a crowbar to pry him off. "Not how I meant it."

"I know. I wasn't just talking about threats from others, either. The more you let it hide behind you, the longer they're going to be in your head. I know it's not easy to talk, but you're going to have to sometime. You're never going to get them out if you don't."

Bucky knew that, had been reminded of it enough the last few days, but every time he tried to drag up what was bothering him and put it into words, he just relived it and it- more than he'd care for -just threw him back into an episode, which made him useless. How was he supposed to talk when trying to put him right back there?

Try. Just once. Steve will forgive him if he can't do it, as long as he tries.

Before his brain could begin to think of anything to say, relevant or otherwise, Steve pulled back, keeping his hands on Bucky's shoulders. Bucky wanted to protest the lack of more comforting hug, but Steve was maintaining such intense eye contact that Bucky was forced to look away. "Talk to me. The cryo unit's still got you spooked. What'd they do when they brought you out that wasn't simple?"

Oh good, a prompt. That time as a peer specialist at the VA had taught Steve a useful skill or two. "Sensory shock." There, a clinical term. It was probably reported in that file, Bucky had refused to look too closely at it, but he was sure it was mentioned there. "Thrown in a tub, hosed down with cool water until body temperature had stabilized."

More clinical, sorta. He could still feel Steve's attention completely on him and it made him fidgety. His jaw clenched in rebellion to his brain's orders to elaborate.

Steve's hands left his shoulders to grab his hands that he hadn't realized had started to shake. "It's okay, Bucky. You're not back there. Tell me? Don't let them hold this over you. Keep talking."

Bucky stared down at their hands, making his brain spit out whatever words he could to explain. "Waking up hurt. Too loud. Too bright. Smelled too sterile. Pain responses from everything, even my left arm. Breathing hurt. They never cared how much it hurt, as long as the process was complete and I could respond to orders. A weapon's only useful when it can work."

"Did they ever treat you like a person?"

Bucky wasn't even sure how to answer at first. Hydra had given him some level of conflicting treatment. He frowned, pulling words from the feelings that had been left behind by the controlled interactions. "Only enough to keep me pulling the trigger for them." He closed his eyes, taking an unsteady breath. _"Please_ don't make me do this anymore." He wasn't sure he could make it through more without curling up on his side and trying not to sob for awhile.

Steve's grip on Bucky's hands tightened as they started shaking too hard for a light touch. "All right, Bucky. That's enough."

Bucky pulled his hands away and looked at Steve, feeling betrayed now that he felt the effects of what Steve had pushed and pushed and pushed him to do. "Why do you want me to do this? It fucking _hurts."_ Surely Steve wouldn't make him keep doing this.

"I know," Steve said. "So does cleaning out an infected wound. The wound may scar, but it won't kill you from that infection spreading. This is the same thing."

Simple enough reasoning. Completely logical and also terrible for being so logical, because it meant that Steve was right and trying to talk about this shit was ultimately going to help.

That was such a fun thing to look forward to. Adding another dozen cookies to make to kill the extra stress.

"Are you going to be okay to go to bed, or do you wanna sit up awhile?" Steve asked, his tone saying Talk Time was ending. Thank god. Bucky might've had a stroke if he had to keep going.

"No," Bucky said, despite that not being a yes/no question. "It's too loud."

Steve held up a finger. "Just a second, got the cure for that." He scooted off the bed and walked to the door. "Wait here."

What the hell?

Okay, time to decide what kind and how many cookies he'd be making if he managed to survive long enough to get home. That made more sense than Steve declaring that the cure for Bucky's brain noise lay somewhere outside the guest room of someone else's house.

He'd actually started browsing the internet for recipes for cookies he'd never made before when a stack of couch cushions on legs walked into the room. The cushions dropped to the floor, revealing Steve, who looked proud of himself for figuring out a problem, only to frown and point at the tablet in Bucky's hands. "You'd better not be back at that base, Bucky. You're done for the night."

Thanks for declaring that. "I'm not, I'm looking at recipe sites." He eyed the cushions while Steve shut the door. "You know, Pepper and Tony probably think we're weird enough without stealing their couch cushions." Ah, normalcy. How you were missed. It wasn't perfect, his insides still felt tipsy-turvy, but proper conversation was coming back.

"A little more won't hurt." Steve smiled, motioning Bucky over. "Come on, come pick out your cushions. Pick well, you're sleeping on them tonight."

Bucky shut down the tablet and set it on the nightstand. "Steve, we're pushing the century mark, aren't we too old for this?"

"We weren't when Mom died, we're not now." At Bucky's continued hesitancy, Steve gave him a look that was almost pleading. "Come on, you're either making me into a bad boyfriend, or a bad little brother here. You need something to help you sleep. I brought in something. Don't tell me it's not good enough."

"No, it's not that," Bucky said, getting up and walking around the foot of the bed. He stared down at the haphazard pile of cushions. There were happy memories associated to that image, nights spent sleeping on the floor, with only cushions under them. It put them closer to each other than the couches did, letting them whisper and laugh long past parental-declared bedtime.

Wait.

Bucky looked up at Steve. "Steve, we were already sharing the bed, why do we need to be closer?" Not that the idea didn't sound marvelous to his affection-starved brain, but he wasn't going to say that.

"Because you're cold," Steve said. "We'll pull the comforter over us, trap body heat closer together." He smiled. "Might even keep away nightmares."

If Bucky had any inclination that direction, he could've kissed Steve for thinking of that. As it was, he pressed his forehead against Steve's shoulder, closing his eyes, as a sense of relief crashed down over him and made him feel slightly off-balance. "Thank you."

Steve patted his back. "You'd do the same for me. That's what partners do. Now I mean it, pick your cushions before I leave you with the second rate ones."

Bucky took a step back to look at the cushions. "They're all the same. You really think Pepper and Tony would have second rate _anythings?"_

"Not the point. Shut up and pick your cushions. I'll grab the comforter."

Bucky obliged him without further retort, arranging all six cushions into two rough beds side by side. There was no way that their feet wouldn't be hanging off the bottom of the cushions. It was questionable if they'd fit on them all; despite how big the cushions were, he and Steve weren't exactly kids anymore.

Steve draped the comforter over the makeshift beds. "See? Just like when we were kids." He paused. "Okay, with better cushions and blankets."

"We've moved up in the world," Bucky said, crawling under the blanket to lay down on his bed that oh yes, was a bit too small to be comfortable. But a bit of physical discomfort was a worthy sacrifice for his mental well-being.

Steve settled in on his cushions, also too big for those to be comfortable. "Only quality incomplete pieces of furniture for us," Steve agreed. "Think you can sleep?"

Bucky considered a moment. The whole 'trapping body heat' thing hadn't quite kicked in yet, but they'd just laid down. That'd take a few minutes. But the proximity of the one person he trusted to help pull him out of a nightmare made Bucky relax a bit. Steve's presence, the closeness, meant that Steve could wake him from a nightmare without even having to stretch his arm. Maybe even close enough that he wouldn't have nightmares to being with.

Yeah, that'd work.

"Yeah."

"Good. Good night, Bucky."

"Good night, Steve."

He closed his eyes, letting the seconds tick by in his head as he warmed up, his insides thawing as the anxiety finally started to soothe away.

That did not change the fact that he was still going to bake those damn cookies when he got home.


End file.
